LEARNINO TO EARN 



LEARNING TO EARN 

A Flea and a Plan for Vocational Education 



By 
JOHN A. LAPP 

Member of the National Commission on Vocational Education. Secrcury 

Indiana Commission on Industrial and Agricultural Education, 

Director of the Bureau of Legislative Information 

and 

CARL H. MOTE 

Author of Industrial Arbitration 



JVith Introduction by 

HON. WILLIAM C. REDFIELD 

Secretary of Commerce 



INDIANAPOLIS 

THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 



Copyright 1915 
The Bobbs-Merrill Company / 



V 



PRESS OF 

BRAUNWORTH & CO. 

BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS 

BROOKLYN, N. Y. 

NOV 261915 

©C1.A416547 



INTRODUCTION 

We are as a people the Wasters of the World 
and are the Prodigal Son among the Nations. We 
save enormously every year but waste far more 
than we save. It seems to be in our national tem- 
perament almost to rejoice in the prodigality with 
which we expend our resources or in the happy care- 
lessness with which we allow them to go unused. 

We do not confine ourselves, however, to wasting 
material things. We waste life as no others do. 

The annual toll of those who are killed 5nd 
wounded by vehicles in the streets of New York 
alone would dim the records of many a sanguinary 
battlefield. Many a war has come, has run its 
bloody course and has ended without as many vic- 
tims in killed and wounded as our industries show 
each year. There are among us excellent people 
quite disturbed over bloodshed in time of war who 
have little to say respecting the bloodshed in times 
of peace. It is true that "safety first" is becoming 
a familiar motto, but it is also true that the warning 
falls too often on heedless ears and that the daily 
sacrifice goes on. 

There are ways of wasting however, very sad 
ways of wasting indeed, which the above do not in- 
clude. There is a way of killing the best in life 
while the body goes on living, and we have been sin- 



INTRODUCTION 

gularly skilful in these injurious processes."^ It is 
easy to smile at the savage who sets up his grotesque 
totem pole, believing that thereby he secures the 
protection of the friendly spirits, but there are 
national totems as well as tribal and individual ones, 
and there is a certain danger that we may worship 
them nearly or quite as blindly as the savage at 
whom we smile. 

When we look with frankness and without bias 
at the results in terms of life of what we are pleased 
to call education, the question will naturally arise 
whether this thing of which we are so proud is not 
as respects most of those who are subjected to its 
processes something of a grotesque totem set on a 
pole for us unintelligently to admire. True it works 
admirably for the few. That is, for the few reck- 
oned in proportion to the whole. One would not 
lightly minimize its value for this small proportion 
of our people nor say aught that would injure the 
justly high estimation in which the fine work of the 
instructor in many a useful institution is held. The 
value of his services to the public is such as to 
make us ciesire to widen its scope and extend its 
benign influence. The difliculty is that the fruitful 
work of the educator reaches at its best far too 
small a minority among us while it is essential, 
deeply essential that its influence should be vastly 
extended. 

When it is pointed out that a half million physical 
lives or more are lost among us each year through 
preventable disease, we feel a certain sense of shock 



INTRODUCTION 

and the publicist comes to the aid of preventive med- 
icine to say these things ought not so to be and to 
join in strong and unselfish attack on the conditions 
that permit such things to continue. 

We are just beginning to realize that by the 
failure of some phases of our educational systems to 
meet the living needs of living boys and girls, we 
are permitting them to enter a sort of death in life 
which is having most hurtful effects on our country. 
Our complacency over the value of the common 
school to our people is being rudely disturbed, for 
many if not most of our young people emerge from 
that same common school quite without adjustment 
to the daily life they must thereafter lead, and al- 
most if not altogether without the training fitting 
them for the workaday world in which they must 
live. 

There is no cleavage between vocational education 
and academic education nor aught of hostility. The 
two are fellows and akin. They stand in a helpful 
and not in a hurtful relation one to the other. Nay, 
it is because academic education at its best has pro- 
duced such noble fruits that the need is more mani- 
fest for the other type of training for those who in 
different spheres find academic education neither 
practicable nor essential. The life in industry, in 
trades, In the home, on the farm, needs and does not 
yet receive the corresponding training in principle 
and practise that is given to the lawyer, the physi- 
cian and the engineer. It is not the same education 
that is needed for all these either in kind or in de- 



INTRODUCTION 

gree, but it is similar in spirit and in purpose and 
has for its outlook that the student shall be prepared 
for the environment which is normal to him. 

Therefore, this book is to be commended as a 
thoughtful study concerning things that are greatly 
needed among us, and as giving an impetus to 
thought that can only be helpful. None of us can 
be satisfied to allow things to remain educationally 
as they are ; to permit our children to go out into a 
life which is a blind alley; to reach a mental *'im- 
passe" before maturity is well begun. The path of 
danger lies that way, and he renders a service to his 
country who calls a halt and directs our thinking as 
to how we may avoid the peril. There can be no 
doubt that when we come to realize the need for 
greater extensiveness of training for the work of 
life both for men and women, we shall take the 
steps^ which shall make that not only possible but 
certain. To this happy progress this book points the 
way. Let us hope it will have wide-spread and 
careful reading. 

William C. Redfield. 
Washington, D. C. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I What Are the Purposes of Education? . . 1 
New applications of old ideals — Education as 
adjustment to environment — What adjust- 
ment means — Self-preservation — Earning a 
living — Citizenship — Home training — Com- 
mercial activities — Education for the con- 
sumer—Education for leisure — Progressive 
education needed to meet modern means. 

II Passing Education Around 21 

Democracy's demand for equality of educa- 
tional opportunity — Adjustment to environ- 
ment must be universal — Individual and en- 
vironment are variable — Education to extenH 
throughout life — Putting knowledge to work 
— Training people at work — Capacity of all 
for training — Outline of a universal scheme 
— Vocational education essential — Influences 
which have thwarted universal education — 
Examples to follow — Some critics answered. 

Ill Wherein the Present System Fails ... 39 
Statistics of school attendance— Why chil- 
dren leave school— Neglect of life-career mo- 
tive — What does education do for those who 
quit school early? — Schools fail to train for 
self-preservation— Little vocational training 
— Rural education unsuited to needs — The 
weaknesses of agricultural colleges— Devel- 
opment of agricultural science — Science of 
commerce and industry still dormant — Im- 
portant education obtainable only in nooks 



CONTENTS— Cow^wM^c? 

CHAPTER PAGE 

and corners — Schools train for higher grades 
— No stopping place — Education stops at the 
school door — Results of education obtainable 
only by a few — The raw materials to work 
upon. 

IV Industry and Its Educational Needs ... 60 
The economic and social basis of industrial 
progress — Lack of skilled workers — Exploita- 
tion of our natural resources — Collapse of 
trade union apprenticeship — Opposition to the 
corporation trade school — Chaos in industry 
— Waste caused by industrial unrest — Coop- 
eration is the ultimate goal — The problem of 
monotony in employment — Training for ac- 
cident prevention — Our industrial history is 
ignored in the schools — The importance of a 
thoroughgoing survey of industry. 

V Agriculture and Its Educational Needs . . 89 
Food production has failed to keep pace with 
the increase in population — Our farm yields 
are far below those of European countries — 
Farm is unattractive as a business opportu- 
nity — Distribution facilities are inadequate — 
Greater production in the aggregate means 
lower prices — Cooperative marketing is a sci- 
entific undertaking and a problem for trained 
minds — Why rural education is uninteresting 
— Agricultural colleges and practical farming 
— Keeping the boy on the farm — The prob- 
lems of tenantry, transient laborers and ma- 
ture workers — Agricultural credit — Farm ac- 
counting — Diversified farming — Expenditures 
for roads — Conservation in agriculture — 
Vision and inspiration count — Careful train- 
ing essential. 



CONTENTS— Continued 

CHAPTER PAGE 

VI Business and Its Educational Needs . . . 116 
Four fundamental processes of business — 
Distribution is vital to the economic progress 
of the nation — Exploitation of natural re- 
sources no longer possible — Specific educa- 
tion for the science of business is needed — 
All classes should become familiar with ele- 
mentary business practises — Agencies of edu- 
cation have failed to grasp commercial prob- 
lems — Certain aspects of foreign trade — 
Germany's commercial prestige founded on 
the careful training of commercial workers — 
Our need of trained consuls — Seven million 
people depend upon "picking-up" process of 
education — Our commercial failures are in- 
creasing — Our lack of self-reliance — Labor 
efficiency is a matter of simplified effortr- 
Mismanagement of railroads — Training for 
salesmanship — Advertising — Our banking 
system is inadequate — Commercial education 
in Germany — Our educational needs. 

yil Training for the Home 143 

Woman's chief vocational interest Is the 
home — Effect of industrial changes on the 
work of the home — Lack of a scientific ap- 
proach — Meager efforts of the schools to 
train efficiently for the duties of the home — 
Variations in the curriculum — General out- 
line of training: food, clothing, fashions, 
building, house furnishing, sanitation, the 
garden, marketing, care of infants, common 
remedies — Music as a vocation and an inci- 
dental interest— Education will lighten the 
burdens of the home. 



C01<^TENTS— Continued 

CHAPTER PAGE 

VIII Vocational Education and Conservation . . 164 
The waste of resources— Direct losses— Indi- 
rect losses — Mining— Lumbering — Soils — In- 
sect pests — Animal diseases — Weeds — Lack 
of drainage — Agricultural production too 
small — Export raw materials instead of fin- 
ished products — ^Waste of human resources — 
Child wastage — Preventable diseases — Acci- 
dents in occupations — Diseases of occupa- 
tions — Conserving health and strength — Ef- 
ficiency. 

IX Prevocational Training 182 

Elementary education most important — Ac- 
quiring tools of knowledge — Education 
should function in daily life — Child who does 
not keep up is not abnormal, only different — 
Correlation of studies — Elements of more 
things should be utilized — Practical arts 
should be compulsory to all — Wasted years 
from fourteen to sixteen — Prevocational 
courses to fill the gap — Not only vocational 
but also guidance courses to be given. 

X The t*LACE of the Vocational School , . . 197 

The place of the vocational school — Takes 
place of apprenticeship — Extent of vocational 
schools — Professional schools — Vocational 
schools for defectives and delinquents — Need 
for vocational schools for the great mass of 
workers — Requirements — Open to all who can 
profit by the instruction — To prepare all- 
round workers — Must be practical — Supply 
deficiencies of apprenticeship — Needs for 
many kinds of vocational schools — The heart 
of the vocational education system. 



CONTENTS— Cow^mw^i 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XI Part-Time Education 213 

Needs of youth who quit school — Schools 
must supply further education if workers are 
to progress — School has heretofore stopped 
at factory door — Cont?inuation courses to 
help misfits — Trade extension courses to in- 
crease efficiency — Supplementary training re- 
quires correlation of study with the occupa- 
tion — Analysis of occupations needed — Part- 
time education useful to adults — Evening 
schools — Courses need to be practical and 
definite. 

XII Extension and Correspondence Work . . . 231 

The place of correspondence and extension 
work in the educational system — What has 
been accomplished — Private correspondence 
schools — Demonstration shops and labora- 
tories necessary for concrete direction — Itin- 
erant teachers — Three types of correspond- 
ence schools — Project system of instruction 
— Maintenance of centers of instruction — 
Personal assistance necessary — Special op- 
portunities in business training by corre- 
spondence — The chamber of commerce — 
Centers for home training — Agricultural 
education by correspondence — The place of 
the university in correspondence and exten- 
sion work. 

XIII The Library and the Worker 249 

Part of the library in universal education — 
Printed matter Is universal In scope — All 
classes should be served — Libraries weak on 
the vocational side — Useful arts departments 



CONTENTS— Continued 

CHAPTER PAGE 

successful — Branches in industrial and mer- 
cantile plants — Chicago's experience — The 
Marshall Field Store library — Practical value 
of correlated reading — Library for agricul- 
ture — Vocational guidance literature. 

XIV Vocational Guidance 262 

Occupational divisions — Educational effort is 
centered on the few — Jefferson as a voca- 
tional counselor — New conditions demand 
highly specialized training — Doctor Parsons' 
precepts in the selection of a vocation — 
Psychological aspects of vocational selection 
— Vocational guidance and conservation — 
Futility of "compulsory education" — Purpose 
of vocational guidance — Economic loss from 
lack of trained workers — A wise choice of 
vocations is essential in a democracy — Pro- 
tection of the child involves intimate ac- 
quaintance with conditions surrounding work 
— Aids to an industrial survey — Summary. 

XV Training of Teachers 285 

Lack of trained teachers for vocational work 
— Need of practical experience — Experience 
in teaching and experience in life — Prejudice 
to be overcome — Wasted efforts from unedu- 
cated and inefficient teachers — Various plans 
for training teachers — The present public- 
school teacher is not equipped for instruc- 
tion in agriculture, the skilled trades or 
household arts — Active business men may be 
drawn upon for teaching in commercial 
schools — Shortcomings of the rural teachers 
— Only one in five teachers is trained — How 



CHAPTER 



COlsiTElS^TS— Continued 

sociological surveys may widen the vision of 
the untrained teacher — Summer schools, cor- 
respondence schools and extension work as 
supplemental aids. 



PAGE 



XVI How Shall the Obligation Be Met? 



. 309 



More money needed when education becomes 
universal — The historical development of lo- 
cal theory of education — The growth of state 
supervision — State aid — National aid — Sys- 
tems of aid most efficient plan — National im- 
portance of vocational education — Competi- 
tive trade — Social unrest — Agricultural de- 
velopment — New burdens — Imminence of the 
problem — States and communities alone can 
not meet the needs quickly enough — Differ- 
ences of financial abilities — Team play of the 
nation, states and local units needed — The 
proposal before Congress for national aid. 



XVII Work and Culture 327 

What is culture? — The medieval conception 
of culture — Introduction of manual training 
and of the occupational interests into the cur- 
riculum — The social difference in vocations 
and the explanation — Culture closely related 
to thorough and carefully planned methods 
of doing work — Art and artisans — Homely 
evidences of culture — Economic phases of 
culture — Erroneous notions of culture — Cul- 
ture for our working hours — Universal edu- 
cation wholly unrealized — Education must 
dovetail into the life-work of boys and girls. 



CONTENTS— Continued 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XVIII Training for Citizenship 344 

Measure of vocational education — Its uni- 
versal scope — An indictment of the present 
system — Fails to develop latent potentialities 
for industrial, agricultural, commercial and 
domestic work — Relationship between ef- 
ficient workmanship and citizenship — Effect 
of habit on education — Economic aggressions 
due to political power — Wherein classical 
education fails — Aimless drifting into over- 
crowded professions and the result — Our 
wasteful and bad government — People fail 
in the simplest duties — Individual efficiency 
means social efficiency — When education is 
pointless, the level of citizenship falls — The 
failure of public servants because of ignor- 
ance — Specific training for citizenship — 
Teaching the morals of good citizenship. 

XIX The Ideal School 266 

Socializing the school — Meeting the needs of 
all — No age limits to its service — All educa- 
tion at public expense and under public man- 
agement — Studying the vocations — Charting 
blind alleys — Keeping abreast of the times — 
Outline of plan — ^Working with workers — 
The fruits. 

Bibliography 381 

Organizations Interested in Vocational 
Training 393 

Index , 397 



LEARNING TO EARN 



Learning to Earn 

CHAPTER I 

WHAT ARE THE PURPOSES OF EDUCATION? 

New applications of old ideals — Education as adjustment to 
environment — What adjustment means — Self-preservation — 
Earning a living — Citizenship — Home training — Commercial 
activities — Education for the- consumer — Education for lei^re 
— Progressive education needed to meet modern needs. 

Progress in human affairs makes necessary a con- 
stant restatement of principles in terms which are 
appHcable to new conditions. By such restatement 
only can certain principles endure in the every-day 
world. Those principles which can not be made 
guides for common good under changed conditions 
are rightly discarded. They may be worshiped as 
fetishes for a time but practise based upon them 
can not stand permanently against the demands of 
the practical mind. Worn-out philosophies must go 
when they obstruct progress, for progress demands 
a constant adaptation to the things of to-day and the 
promise of to-morrow. 

No field offers a more striking opportunity for ob- 

1 



2 LEARNING TO EARN 

servations of this character than the subject of this 
chapter — "What are the purposes of education?" 
Throughout the ages this question has agitated the 
minds of schoolmen, philosophers and statesmen. 
At one time it has been answered and acted upon 
in one way, at another in a different way. One 
country and one civilization have adopted one ideal, 
another a wholly different ideal. The Hebrews 
sought morality and religion through education; 
the Athenians aimed at ideal culture; the Spartans 
sought physical power; the Romans, law, oratory 
and military prowess; the church in the Middle 
Ages, preparation for a future state; while modern 
nations have sought a variety of ends combining 
many of the ancient ideals with modern needs. 

One thing stands out in bold relief in the history 
of education, namely, that thinkers in all ages have 
believed in the efficacy of education to attain certain 
ends. It has always meant power expressed accord- 
ing to the prevailing ideal. 

Another characteristic feature of educational 
philosophy, developed throughout the ages, has been 
its idealism. "To train men to the fullest expression 
of their powers," according to the ideal of the time 
was set up as the end of education. In all cases, 
however, it was the ideal education of the for- 
tunately circumstanced which philosophers talked 
about and statesmen promoted. Education was for 
the few who could profit by the particular education 



THE PURPOSES OF EDUCATION 3 

offered. The many went untaught and the problem 
of teaching them was scarcely considered and not at 
all acted upon. 

This philosophy of ideal education has come down 
to us from the past generations and still persists as 
the basis of our educational practise and dominates 
the system in which we attempt to educate "all the 
children of all the people." In other words an in- 
herited scheme of education designed to give the 
broadest culture and information to the few who 
have no time limits to their educational opportu- 
nities is applied "willy-nilly" to the great mass of 
children, half of whom leave the school at fourt^n 
years of age. 

The present demand is that we refashion our 
educational philosophy in the light of the actual con- 
ditions; that we throw off the shackles of an 
outworn past ; that we restate our educational prin- 
ciples; and address ourselves to the task of deter- 
mining the end of education in this time and in this 
country where certain facilities for education are 
universally provided and attendance at school com- 
pelled. We must find modem substitutes for an- 
cient ideals and we must make practical the ideals 
we set up. 

One of the keenest of our present-day educators 
has declared the ideal of education to be: "What 
the best and wisest of parents wants for his own 
child, that must the community want for all its 



i. 



4 LEARNING TO EARN 

children. Any other ideal for our schools isj un- 
lovely; acted upon, it destroys our democracy/"^ 

No one would question that the community should 
offer the opportunity for the fulfillment of this ideal 
for all its children. This country has offered such 
opportunity in the system of public schools which 
afford the chance for the highest development to 
those who would pursue knowledge to the utter- 
most. As a working plan, however, the system 
quite generally fails. It actually works out to the 
advantage of a small percentage of youth, while to 
the great majority — fully ninety per cent. — it is lit- 
tle more than a dream. 

In recasting our education to meet the demands 
of a democracy we may well accept the ideal set 
forth by Dewey and keep open the way from the 
kindergarten to the university. But we can not be 
true to that ideal if we worship it and fail to meet 
the needs of the vast majority of youth who are 
unable to stay in school even partially to attain the 
ideal. 

With the ideal in mind and the actual conditions 
understood, our problem is to reassert the estab- 
lished principles of education in terms of universal 
application. Not merely what we desire for all chil- 
dren but what we can actually accomplish by educa- 
tion for each, should guide us. We must make our 
educational principles applicable to the education of 



Dewey. The School and Society, p. 19. 



THE PURPOSES OF EDUCATION 5 

the great mass as we find them and not merely to the 
education of selected groups. We must not close 
our minds to the educational needs and rights of the 
ninety per cent, who do not profit by the system of 
ideal education which we have set up. 

The best we can do is to keep the door of educa- 
tional opportunity wide open and encourage and help 
all to enter, and also strive to educate all of the 
others who for any reason have not been able to 
profit by the instruction offered. 

A theory of perfection will not do if we expect 
practical results. We are not a nation exclusively 
of philosophers and our children are not all phil(^so- 
phers in embryo. Variety is almost as great as num- 
bers. No two persons are alike physically and the 
fact holds true mentally. What will train one to 
the highest good will fall on sterile ground with 
another. No educational system of uniform rigid 
application will meet the needs of a democracy. 
Such a system must be as varied as the infinite dif- 
ferences of humanity. 

An examination of society and of the system of 
education at once establishes the conclusion that 
whatever philosophy we build our educational sys- 
tem upon it should be based upon the idea of giving 
to each person the kind and content of education by 
which he can profit. Education ought to be suited 
to the capabilities of each and to avoid an abstract 
ideal by which the few only may profit. 



6 LEARNING TO EARN ^- 

In seeking the basis of such a philosophy, the 
idea of education as an adjustment of the individual 
to his environment has been evolved. The idea is 
at once universal in its application, and offers the 
abstract ideal of giving to each the opportunity for 
the fullest development of which he is capable. 

Education as an adjustment of the individual to 
his environment, as here understood, means not 
merely adjustment to the material things around 
him, but also adjustment to the larger life which he 
must lead as an individual, a member or parent of a 
family, a member of society and a citizen of the 
state. Education should bring each individual into 
harmonious relations with all the activities which go 
to make up his ordinary life. As expressed by Her- 
bert Spencer^ the ultimate test is : 

"How to live?^ — Not how to live in the mere 
material sense only, but in the widest sense. The 
general problem which comprehends every special 
problem is — the right ruling of conduct in all direc- 
tions under all circumstances. In what way to treat 
the body; in what way to treat the mind; in what 
way to manage our affairs; in what way to bring 
up a family; in what way to behave as a citizen; 
in what way to utilize all those sources of happiness 
which nature supplies — how to use all our facilities 
to the greatest advantage of ourselves and others — 
how to live completely? And this being the great 
thing needful for us to learn, is, by consequence, the 

^ What Knowledge Is of Most Worth. 



THE PURPOSES OF EDUCATION 7 

great thing which education has to teach. To pre- 
pare us for complete Hving is the function which 
education has to discharge; and the only rational 
mode of judging of any educational course is, to 
judge in what degree it discharges such function." 

Coming to the classification of those activities 
which essentially make up life, Spencer arranges 
them as follows: ''1. Those activities which di- 
rectly minister to self-preservation. 2. Those ac- 
tivities which, by securing the necessaries of life, 
indirectly minister to self-preservation. 3. Those 
activities which have for their end the rearing and 
discipline of offspring. 4. Those activities which 
are involved in the maintenance of proper social 
and political relations. 5. Those miscellaneous ac- 
tivities which make up the leisure part of life, de- 
voted to the gratification of the tastes and feelings." 

In a primitive state of society most of this educa- 
tion could be obtained from institutions other than 
the school. Self-preservation from the ordinary 
dangers, being largely instinctive, there was little 
that outside direction could do in this part of educa- 
tion except to protect the child from precipitate dan- 
gers to which he was not accustomed. In such a 
society self-support was learned from actual experi- 
ence. The son followed his father's footsteps and 
learned the simple things of the trade or of the field 
which were needed for self-support. Production 
for simple needs required no elaborate schooling. 



8 



LEARNING TO EARN 



Likewise in the home the child learned the methods 
of the household and the care of children. 

In such a primitive society, as O'Shea points out,^ 
"where the individual's adaptations to the world is 
not, relatively speaking, very complex, and conse- 
quently when needs are comparatively few each per- 
son can look after himself quite completely. The 
mode of settling difficulties between man and man 
does not call for much beyond muscular force and so 
the individual has no need for learning a vast body 
of intricate laws governing social relations. There 
is no stock of knowledge or experience relating to 
the nature and method of treating human ailments 
which makes the services of a specialist in medicine 
necessary. So the individual can get what food he 
needs, can make his own clothing, can build his own 
hut, and so on." 

The social order in this country is no longer 
primitive. It grows infinitely complex. Each dec- 
ade brings with it new problems and new duties. 
Corresponding responsibilities are placed upon so- 
ciety if the ideal of education is to be realized and 
the mass of individuals adjusted to their environ- 
ment. Take for example, the new things required 
to be taught in the simplest phase of education men- 
tioned above — that for self-preservation. Man in 
the aggregate is no longer a free agent. He can 
not live unto himself alone. The majority of men 



Education as Adjustment, p. 119„ 



THE PURPOSES OF EDUCATION 9 

must work in connection with other men, in masses 
— in the factories, mills and workshops, on high- 
ways, railroads, streets and on the farm. They must 
work with complicated machinery — they are in fact 
a part of a great machine. Dangers beset them on all 
sides. They are subjected to the risk of industrial 
accidents and to the infections of occupational dis- 
eases. The very food that sustains them is no 
longer simple diet, but the product of many lands 
and of many processes of manufacture. They must 
know many more facts of physiology and dietetics 
than their forefathers knew in order to protect their 
lives and sustain them in vigor. Knowledge for 
self-preservation is extensive and the individual can 
not be left to learn by body-breaking experience, the 
things which organized instruction can give. 

How to protect life in all of the varied and com- 
plicated world's work; how to prevent the calamities 
of occupational accidents and diseases, how to make 
men keener in self -protection and stronger for the 
struggle of life, all these throw a great and increas- 
ing burden upon the agencies of education. Nor 
does this consist merely in learning a few facts or 
being trained in the use of safety devices. It is com- 
prehensive of the whole civic and social life and 
broadly educational in its content and results. 
Proper education for self-preservation is at once 
universal, scientific and practical. 

To adjust the individual to his environment in the 



10 LEARNING TO EARN 

second great purpose of education, namely, to earn a 
living, means an entirely different regimen of studies 
than in the simpler life of the past. 

The process of conquering the earth and its po- 
tential powers has evolved a new order and con- 
tinued evolution is bringing changes whose extent 
we can only dimly foresee. The people of the world 
earn their livings to-day in hundreds of ways un- 
known a generation ago. The people of the next 
generation will add other hundreds of occupations. 
In these circumstances of growth and change we 
readily see the task which education must assume if 
its ends are to be universally obtained and progress- 
ively maintained. In former days when the son fol- 
lowed the father to his shop or into the fields and 
the girl was the mother's apprentice and the young 
learned the mystery and art of the trade or other 
vocation from their elders by practise and precept, 
the need for other educational agencies to fit for 
earning a living was not apparent. At least it was 
not a pressing necessity. The system may not have 
promoted progress as it should, but it gave at least 
a passable preparation for work. 

New economic conditions have changed all of this. 
Instead of the simple shop where the father or the 
master carried on his simple trade and taught the 
mystery and art to his son or to his apprentice, there 
is the great factory, specialized processes, division of 
labor, machine production, all resulting in the utter 



THE PURPOSES OF EDUCATION 11 

demoralization of the system of education which 
formerly prepared the young for their life-work. 
The achievements of the new industrial day are mar- 
velous, but they are marred by the failure of indus- 
trialists and the public to see that the right kind of 
educational advance goes hand in hand with the new 
industry, supplying the needs of the workers in the 
new forms of industry with the education which the 
former apprenticeship system gave in the old and 
without which, men become slaves to the machines 
on which they work. Educational agencies absorbed 
with the fetishes of a worn-out philosophy of edu- 
cation left industry and the workers severely alone, 
and industry took advantage of its freedom by ex- 
ploiting the men and women and the boys and girls, 
by working them for profit with no thought of an 
obligation to educate them for permanent and in- 
creasing efficiency. 

Instead of the nice adjustment which should al- 
ways exist between education and work, so that the 
vision of the worker will be constantly enlarged and 
so that men may become broadly efficient and 
economically independent, we have been left by the 
neglect of the past in the sad state where a great 
majority of our people receive no adequate prepara- 
tion for earning a living either through educational 
agencies or in industry itself. 

No matter what field of human activity we con- 
sider, the same facts strike us forcibly — that the 



12 LEARNING TO EARN 

altered economic conditions have made necessary a 
corresponding alteration of education if the end of 
education as adjustment shall be realized. The farm 
furnishes typical examples. The farmer of a few 
years ago needed little education other than that 
learned by experience as a farm laborer or as a farm 
helper in the farm family regime. Small produc- 
tion largely for home consumption ; few farm tools 
and simple equipment; rich soils and plenty of new 
lands and few problems of transportation or the sale 
of products, needed little education on the part of 
the farmer other than that gained from experience, 
tutelage by parents and common observation. To- 
day the vocation of farming, if successful, requires 
big, practical, scientific, broadly-educated business 
men. In no calliiig is so much and such diversified 
knowledge required. Preparation for this vocation 
requires a system of education closely adjusted to 
the needs of the industry in each community and 
fitted to the capacities of men. Science especially, 
including chemistry, biology and physics, plays a 
large part. So does mathematics with particular 
reference to the formulas for feed, seed, fertilizer 
and scores of other commodities where mathemat- 
ical adjustment of parts is essential. Cost account- 
ing is a neglected but necessary guide to a farmer's 
work, while to get the part of the product which 
reasonably belongs to him requires that he have 
knowledge of the economics of production, trans- 



THE PURPOSES OF EDUCATION 13 

portation and marketing. Education to prepare 
adequately for earning a living on the farm now 
and in the still more intense future, must keep the 
balance nicely adjusted between the actual work 
and the guiding principles of the knowledge suited 
to the vocation. Education as adjustment to en- 
vironment should be largely reconstructed to meet 
the needs of the farmer. 

Likewise in the home is found the same expan- 
sion of duties. There are increased difficulties and 
responsibilities of parenthood; an economic neces- 
sity for conservation to meet the high cost of liv- 
ing; and the requirements for human efficiency of 
better food values; to say nothing of the develop- 
ment of the artistic and the beautiful in home life. 
Some can get a reasonably good education and 
training at home, but in these days most people must 
be trained for the home by agencies outside the 
home. 

In the distributive process — the commercial ac- 
tivities — the same conclusions hold with even greater 
force. On the side of distribution it must be ad- 
mitted we are fundamentally weak. The solution 
of the problem of getting the goods to the consumer 
with the greatest economy has hardly yet been 
touched. Business has been done largely by "rule 
of thumb." It has been imitative and seldom orig- 
inal. Great numbers of business men have been 
merely soldiers of fortune seeking their chance. By 



14 LEARNING TO EARN 

excessive profits in specialties or in special cir- 
cumstances, many have succeeded. Those who have 
grasped the commercial problems and have built 
solidly upon knowledge — in other words those who 
have been adjusted to their jobs — are few. No bet- 
ter proof could be furnished — if proof were neces- 
sary — than the demoralization of American com- 
merce in the months following the outbreak of the 
European war. Our commercial adventurers found 
themselves confused and powerless. It remained 
for the few who really had grasped the fundamentals 
of business, who had the requisite knowledge and 
the vision which goes with it, to bring order out of 
the chaos. 

All through the ranks of business runs the fatal 
weakness of unpreparedness to meet new conditions. 
The managers have been trained by rule of thumb, 
the subordinates have been educated in so-called 
"business colleges" where the machine grinds out 
finished products in three months to a year. No ra- 
tional study of business needs or of workers has 
ever been made and hence the education of business 
men and their subordinates has failed to meet the 
needs of the workers in the commercial life of the 
present or to build up a solid foundation for busi- 
ness. 

Not to multiply examples on this head but to show 
the universal need of an education for more efficient 
adjustment in all phases of life, mention must be 



THE PURPOSES OF EDUCATION 15 

made of the new demands upon the more skilled 
trades, vocations and professions. The lawyer 
needs a far wider range of matters than his prede- 
cessor if he is to serve humanity or to win and hold 
clients; a physician has infinitely more to learn; a 
minister of the gospel can not rely upon dogmatic 
sermons if he is to lead his fellow men; broader and 
more practical education to adjust them to their 
whole job should be had by the engineer, teacher, 
pharmacist, architect and all the other professional 
vocations, and a clear grasp of social and industrial 
facts and conditions must be given to all men, what- 
ever their calling, if men are to be adjusted fully 
to the environment of the present day and tb be 
capable of playing their full part in society. 

But every person is a consumer without regard to 
his status in the vocations as a producer. Men must 
eat, be clothed, and housed and have the privilege 
of enjoying all that they are capable of in the leisure 
of life. They have vocations and work at them to 
earn enough to live. The object of educating to 
produce more efficiently is clearly to provide more 
to consume, whether of food, clothing or enjoy- 
ments. Since production and consumption are so 
closely related, education for each serves the pur- 
poses of the other. If men are taught to consume 
food which conserves the strength and saves the 
pocketbook, a larger sum is left for clothing, shel- 
ter and enjoyments. If clothing and shelter are 



16 LEARNING TO EARN 

wisely and expertly chosen and appropriated, the 
economy makes possible opportunities for a fuller 
life. Wise use is certainly as important as efficient 
production. 

Education as adjustment has here its most uni- 
versal need and clearest possibilities of application. 
Absolute or approximate universal education for 
production may be impossible because of the infinite 
variations of occupations, but education for con- 
sumption is simple, homogeneous and easily or- 
ganized. 

Thus, in the all important activities of life con- 
nected with making a living and living, as in that 
of direct self-preservation, an intenser education to 
bring the individual into harmony with his environ- 
ment, and to give him possession of the tools of 
economic independence, is a present and future 
necessity for individual and social welfare. 

When the individual has been trained efficiently 
in self-preservation and to earn a living, he has the 
potential capacity for good citizenship. The effi- 
cient man is the efficient citizen. Men need to be in 
a position to serve themselves before they can serve 
the state. The citizen to-day has upon him a vast 
and increasing burden. The complexities of society 
must be understood somewhat, because he must 
guide his actions in the midst of these complexities. 
Moreover, democracy has put the responsibility 
upon every citizen not only to determine his own 



THE PURPOSES OF EDUCATION 17 

course but also to help in determining society's 
course. 

To see that every man in every walk of life is a 
true civic unit having power as an individual, and 
insight as a citizen, is one of the foremost duties of 
our educational system. Not merely the education 
of the few for leadership in civic affairs, but the en- 
largement of the civic knowledge of each unit will 
solve the problems of modern life. Each individual 
in a democracy is entitled to receive an education 
which puts him in full command of himself as a 
worker and a citizen. 

Likewise, the education which Spencer advocated 
to enable the individual to enjoy the leisure time of 
life must be broadly aimed to touch all persons with 
its beneficent influence. Not merely that the few 
may learn to enjoy beauty in a picture, a statue, or 
a poem, but that all may find wholesome pleasures 
in their ordinary spheres, is the ideal of education 
for adjustment. 

All phases of life have become more complex and 
education must lay new foundations and adopt new 
methods to accomplish its ends. The apprenticeship 
system has broken down in industry ; home training 
no longer suffices for the majority who are to be 
home-makers in this day; workers can no longer 
successfully engage in agriculture or industry if 
armed only with crude uneducated experience; the 
lawyer, doctor, teacher and preacher, in fact all 



18 LEARNING TO EARN 

artisans, workers or professional people can not 
fully realize the ideal unless more broadly educated 
than by the earlier but now obsolete methods of ap- 
prenticeship, office boy, helper or assistant. Out- 
side agencies must engage in placing broad founda- 
tions of knowledge under the experience gained in 
shop or home, farm or profession. 

This sort of education must be essentially pro- 
gressive. It must keep abreast of the times and 
always with an eye to future development. A sys- 
tem of educational adjustment established to-day 
and based upon present economic conditions would 
be out of date in some particulars within a brief 
space of time and almost wholly obsolete in a few 
generations. 

An example of what happens when the schools 
are not progressively adjusted, is drawn by Dewey 
from the problems in compound partnership given 
in arithmetic up to a short time ago. The com- 
pound partnership originated as far back as the 
sixteenth century as a system of doing business be- 
fore the days of the joint stock company. "Nat- 
urally then compound partnership was taught in the 
schools. The joint stock company was invented, 
compound partnership disappeared but the problems 
relating to it stayed in the arithmetic for two hun- 
dred years. They were kept after they had ceased 
to have practical utility for the sake of mental dis- 
cipline — they were *such hard problems you know.' 



,THE PURPOSES OF EDUCATION 19 

A great deal of what is now in the arithmetic under 
the head of percentage is of the same nature. Chil- 
dren of twelve and thirteen years of age go through 
gain and loss calculations and various forms of bank 
discounts so complicated that bankers long ago dis- 
pensed with them. And when it is pointed out that 
business is not done that way we hear again of 
'mental discipline.' And yet there are plenty of real 
connections between the experience of children and 
business conditions which need to be utilized and 
illuminated."* 

When we consider the adjustment of the individ- 
ual to his environment we often think that the en- 
vironment is static and the adjusting must be en- 
tirely on the part of the individual. This is not 
correct, for we know that man in his reactions upon 
his environment changes that environment and the 
concentrated movements of men in the mass change 
society into a dynamic state. The instrument which 
adjusts one dynamic body to another and keeps them 
adjusted must itself be dynamic. Education being 
that means of adjustment between man and his en- 
vironment, must continually be adjusting its content 
and methods to the changing conditions on which 
it works. Education must be progressive, therefore, 
if it is to be the adjusting force in society. Teach- 
ers, text-books, paraphernalia, materials and meth- 



* School and Society, pp. 91, 92. 



20 LEARNING TO EARN 

ods must be suited to the time and place, to the in- 
dividual, and the state of society. If the school be 
in Porto Rico, it should seek to adjust the pupils to 
the life of Porto Rico and not to that of Boston. 
If the school be in a twentieth-century environment, 
it should draw its content from the twentieth and 
not from the sixteenth century. 

In terms then of modern application the end of 
education is to train the individual in self-preserva- 
tion in the multitude of dangers which beset his 
path ; to train him to earn a living and to live under 
modern conditions of production and distribution; 
to be an efficient consumer; to conserve the home 
and care for children; to perform essential duties 
as a citizen ; and to enable each to get the fullest en- 
joyment from the work which he does as a worker, 
parent or citizen and to utilize the leisure time of 
life wisely and happily. 

"The world in which most of us live,'* says John 
Dewey, "is a world in which everyone has a call- 
ing, an occupation, something to do. Some are 
managers and others are subordinates. But the 
great thing for one as for the other is that each 
shall have had the education which enables him to 
see within his daily work all there is in it of large 
and human significance."^ 

^School and Society, p. 38. 



CHAPTER II 

PASSING EDUCATION AROUND 

Democracy's demand for equality of educational opportunity 
—Adjustment to environment must be universal — Individual 
and environment are variable — Education to extend through- 
out life — Putting knowledge to work — Training people at 
work — Capacity of all for training — Outline of a universal 
scheme — Vocational education essential — Influences which 
have thwarted universal education — Examples to follow — 
Some critics answered. 

Nothing short of universal education can be the 
ultimate goal of democracy. Equality of opportu- 
nity is the foundation of all society based on demo- 
cratic principles. We agree that education is a fun- 
damental requirement for equality, and if equality 
in educational opportunity is to be attained, all sorts 
of education must be provided to meet the needs of 
all sorts of people. A democracy must seek to 
realize, for all education, the ideal of Ezra Cornell 
for collegiate work expressed in the statement so 
often quoted: "I v^ould found a university where 
any person can find instruction in any study." ''It 
is evident," said Lester F. Ward, "that any system 
of education which falls short, even in the slightest 
particular, of absolute universality can not proceed 

21 



22 LEARNING TO EARN 

from any true conception of what education is for, 
or what it is capable of accompHshing." 

The truth of these observations will go unchal- 
lenged if we agree upon the proposition set forth 
in the first chapter that true education consists in 
the adjustment of the individual to his environment. 
This means the adjustment of the great mass of 
people and not merely the fortunate few. It means 
that the system should not be based upon the capa- 
bilities and possibilities of the "exceptionally 
talented, the influential, the fortunately circum- 
stanced, the heirs of plenty and of leisure," but 
should be based primarily upon average normal 
human beings. They constitute the great mass 
which is yet largely untouched by real education. 

Education for adjustment must take account of 
two variables, the individual and the environment. 
No two people are exactly alike in physical form or 
adaptability. The variations in the race are infinite. 
No two people are alike in mentality. Again the 
variations in the race are infinite. It follows that 
education which takes account of mental power and 
physical adaptability must be extremely varied if the 
real needs of all the people are to be met. Likewise 
the variations in environment are no less infinite and 
changes take place with a rapidity that is disturbing 
to any rigid scheme. Education must therefore, in 
practical fashion, group the individuals for teaching 
purposes and lay hold of the more permanent prac- 



PASSING EDUCATION AROUND 23 

tises and principles in the environing world of each 
group and bring the two into as nearly harmonious 
relations as the variations of both will permit. 

Plans for universal education will take account of 
the fact also that education is not confined to the 
few years in school, but extends throughout life. 
Such plans will recognize that "commencement day" 
is not the end — as most young folks think — but the 
beginning of education and there will be worked 
out such a coordination of the school work with 
the life of the youth, that education will naturally 
slip over from his school days into his every-day life 
when he leaves the school. Graduation will mean 
that the gap between school and work has been 
bridged and that the youth has joined his mental 
assets, accumulated through his school studies, with 
his practical work in profession, trade, or business. 

There has been too wide a separation between 
education and practise. Men have gone on accumu- 
lating knowledge ; scientists and thinkers have been 
producing new knowledge; and yet the workers on 
the other side have done their work without the ap- 
plication of this knowledge which would have meant 
so much to them. Knowledge and work have each 
been kept in sealed packages to the hurt of the latter 
and the uselessness of the former. ''So learn that 
you may do, and so do that you may learn," should 
be the ideal of universal education in the process 
of adjusting man to his environment. Universal 



24 LEARNING TO EARN 

education recognizes that education is as much for 
men who are doing things as for those who are 
thinking about things. 

Enough knowledge is already stored up to revolu- 
tionize the practical world if it could only be brought 
into action. Enough scientific knowledge of agri- 
culture is in printed form to make two blades of 
grass grow where one grows now if it were effect- 
ively put to work; enough of industrial science has 
been accumulated to bring a new era of efficiency 
if a channel could be opened to conduct it to the 
right workers in the office and shop ; enough science 
and art stand ready to improve the millions of 
homes in the land if the home-makers were given 
the opportunity to get, and were taught to practise, 
that part which is useful to them; and enough prin- 
ciples and facts of business are available for the 
business man to give business a broader, more per- 
manent and more efficient character if they can only 
be wrought in the right proportions, into the minds 
and actions of business men. 

The task of doing these things rests upon the edu- 
cational system. The public is deeply concerned 
that all of these ends be accomplished and the only 
public instrument available is the educational system 
already set up for that very purpose, but which has 
been perverted from this end by lack of insight, 
true guidance and constant adaptation. The lead- 
ers of education on the one hand and of industry, 



PASSING EDUCATION AROUND 25 

business, home and farm on the other, have been 
working independently, resulting in a system of 
education unarticulated with environment and an 
environment which fails to get the forming and 
transforming knowledge of the school. 

It can not be too often repeated that education 
of the sort here outlined must be progressive; con- 
stantly adapting itself to new conditions; taking ad- 
vantage of new knowledge; and bringing about a 
responsive interaction between knowledge and the 
vocational work of the persons within its influence. 

The intent of education rightly understood and 
applied, is not merely to instruct the youth, to give 
them vocational help, and to form their character. 
It is not merely to make lawyers, doctors, bankers, 
carpenters, machinists, engineers, farmers or home- 
makers. It should do those things in thorough fash- 
ion, but it should be no less solicitous of the equally 
large and significant task of educating men and 
women already engaged in vocational work to be 
more efficient as workers, home-makers and citi- 
zens and more broadly sympathetic with life. To 
take an apprentice in any line and supply by educa- 
tion the deficiencies of his practical training and 
make him an all-around man of trade or profession; 
to make a tradesman a better skilled and more effi- 
cient worker ; to educate a bank clerk to be a banker ; 
a salesman to be a buyer, a department head or man- 
ager; a farmer to utilize the expert knowledge of 



26 LEARNING TO EARN 

his business, or the home manager to conserve the 
home and its resources ; to put within reach of every 
one the means of bettering himself if he is ambitious 
and able to profit by the instruction given, is a pro- 
gram to fire the imagination of any person who be- 
lieves in the power of education to promote for the 
individual a better and fuller life, and for the nation 
a sounder and more permanent eflficiency. 

The argument for universal education is predi- 
cated upon the fact that the mass of people are 
capable of utilizing properly selected data of educa- 
tion which is presented in the right way. Far- 
seeing German educators and statesmen have 
realized this fact and have acted upon it to the ex- 
tent of planning a system of education which rec- 
ognizes the possibilities of utilizing education in all 
walks of life. They recognize the differences in 
capacity of people and they likewise recognize the 
differences in information possessed by each. Lester 
F. Ward has put the case for the average man in 
these words : "The large fund of good sense which 
is always found among the lower uneducated classes 
is an obtrusive fact to every observing mind. The 
ability with which ignorant people employ their 
small fund of knowledge has surprised many 
learned men. While there may doubtless be found 
all grades of intellect from the highest philosopher 
to the lowest idiot, the number who fall below a cer- 
tain average standard is insignificant, and so, too, is 



PASSING EDUCATION AROUND 27 

the number who rise above it. The great bulk of 
humanity are fully witted, and amply capable of 
taking care of themselves if afforded an opportu- 
nity." 

While recognizing the capacity of the bulk of hu- 
manity for training, he also recognized the possi- 
bilities of applying education to the widest range of 
activities. To quote him, "All the activities of life 
are controlled by laws, all successful enterprises are 
prosecuted according to certain distinct and unvary- 
ing principles. These are empirically, though as a 
rule not scientifically, known. To co-ordinate them, 
though perhaps a laborious, is by no means a diffi- 
cult task. To make them the subject of systematic 
instruction is not only possible and practicable but 
in the highest degree desirable — the most general 
knowledge attainable would have a direct and im- 
portant bearing upon the most special vocations of 
life, so that without descending to technical instruc- 
tion, the greater part of all the most necessary and 
important practical knowledge of human life might 
find place in a universal curriculum." 

There are several directions in which the educa- 
tional system must expand if universal education 
is to be approximated. 

First, there should be a broader and richer cur- 
riculum in the elementary schools so as to appeal 
to a wider range of tastes and capabilities and to 
give to each student more of the elements of the 



2^ LEARNING TO EARN 

things which come within the range of his ordinary 
experience. 

Second, education should not stop at the school 
door. Everything inside should coordinate with the 
environment of the pupils. The school and the en- 
vironment ought to act and react upon each other. 
And this should continue after the pupil has left the 
school and gone to work. Until the youth is at least 
eighteen years of age, whether he is at work or not, 
there should be sustained a direct relation with the 
school. 

Third, many-sided opportunities for vocational 
education must be given when the youth reaches 
that age when individualism asserts itself and educa- 
tion in the mass begins to fail. 

Fourth, the occupations into which youth enter 
should be studied and the educational possibilities 
utilized, for it must be recognized that the principal 
education which a worker gets is through the work 
he is doing. So the school must point out what there 
is in each person's work of educational significance 
and then use it to interest the workers in the possi- 
bilities of continued education. 

Fifth, education being a continuing process, sci- 
entific care should be taken to encourage the utiliza- 
tion of every means of promoting study correlated 
with daily experiences in trade, shop, profession, 
home, farm, or in the civic life of the community. 
By evening courses, correspondence courses, public 



PASSING EDUCATION AROUND 29 

libraries and reading rooms, the chance should be 
afforded to every one to continue his education all 
through life. 

Under an ideal system of universal education, the 
youth will receive an education in the elementary 
school which will give him the tools of knowledge 
and some power to appreciate the best in the intellec- 
tual and civic life; he will receive a broad knowl- 
edge of social and industrial affairs and thereby a 
better insight into the way in which men live and 
labor, and thereby of the forces which move the 
world. At the age of fourteen the schools will offer 
him many-sided opportunities for training in lines 
suited to his tastes and capacities. He may*take 
further general training preparatory to the higher 
education or the learned professions; he may begin 
to prepare for a business career; he may take gen- 
eral industrial courses leading up to the study of a 
trade ; or he may go to work, returning to the school 
a part of the time for supplementary instruction. 
At sixteen he is free and the lines of study open to 
him become more specialized. His previous train- 
ing, if it has been broad and properly adapted, will 
have begun at least the process of adjusting him to 
his environment and will therefore have given him 
a broader basis upon which to build his choice of a 
vocation. At this age the youth who is going into 
a trade has as good a right to the means of educa- 
tion as has the boy who has decided upon a profes- 



30 LEARNING TO EARN 

sion. It is wrong to pave the road to the profes- 
sions and to leave "the right of way" to the trades 
and to business and other useful occupations unsur- 
veyed. To do so, sets a false standard. The stamp 
of approval is put on professional work and the 
other is negatively disapproved as an object of 
worthy ambition. As a result, the professions be- 
come overcrowded with mediocre men and the 
skilled trades and occupations with poorly trained 
men, and great armies of unskilled workers fill the 
ranks of the unemployed and, unfortunately often, 
unemployable. Under these conditions, standards 
are lowered, industry and business languish, gov- 
ernments are corrupted, social unrest is everywhere 
found and a vicious form of class education is the 
direct result. 

It is one of the anomalies of democracy that that 
which concerns ninety per cent, of the people should 
be sacrificed to that which concerns ten per cent. 
The greatest good to the greatest number is not 
thus attained. Yet colleges preceded primary schools 
in this country and received legislative sanction and 
liberal aid from the state long before free public 
schools were provided. Thomas Jefferson outlined 
a system of universal education including free com- 
mon schools, secondary schools and a college, but 
the only part of the plan which was adopted was the 
latter — the University of Virginia. In fact, it was 
rather late in the last century before our states be- 



PASSING EDUCATION AROUND 31 

gan to establish free public schools. But free 
schools came and eventually compulsory educa- 
tion in most of the states. It looked like the 
dawn of universal education. But conditions 
changed so rapidly and the traditional course 
of study was so rigid that the result was uni- 
versal education in name but not in substance. A 
new industrial and social environment demanded a 
corresponding expansion in education. New needs 
grew up in the complex condition. Old methods 
of training for trades, business, farm and home 
were abandoned or rendered almost obsolete. The 
apprenticeship system broke down and no agency 
was left but the school to perform the huge task of 
adjusting the race to its environment. That which 
looked like universal education in an earlier time 
became by social and industrial progression, a par- 
tial and inadequate education, for the demands of 
the new day. Indeed it is doubtful if the schools, 
viewed from the standpoint of universal education, 
come as near to fillrng their true functions in these 
times as the much less efficient schools did for their 
times a few generations ago. 

The influences which have thwarted the develop- 
ment of universal education are many and subtle. 
Chief among these are : a wrong idea of the purpose 
of education; a pedagogy based upon a worn-out 
philosophy; an educational "standpatism" which re- 
fuses to seek the truth; and an aristocracy of educa- 



32 LEARNING TO EARN 

tion which successfully has kept a firm grip on the 
direction of educational effort. All of these com- 
bined have formed a wall of ignorance, cupidity and 
selfishness which it is very difiicult to break through. 

Movements have been started for vocational train- 
ing as a step in universal education. Forthwith we 
have heard raised the "hue and cry" that culture, 
without any proffer to define the term, is the only 
worthy end of education. The idealist comes for- 
ward and prates about the development of classes, 
as if no education would preserve a happy state of 
social equality while a useful education would de- 
stroy it. The standpatter declares against doing 
anything which will require him to think, and lastly 
the aristocrat, whether of profession, trade, or call- 
ing, sees to it that the education given in his par- 
ticular line shall be not too common. 

In such conditions, we have the spectacle of 
the elementary and high schools, the colleges and 
universities, driving out the youth who can not jump 
over the educational hurdles at the right pace. We 
find many of the professional schools and even trade 
schools setting up requirements for entrance and in 
the courses, which have no relation to the study or 
practise of the professions or trades they teach, but 
which serve to eliminate some more "unfits." We 
find the trade school too often catering to the few 
"learned trades" and aspiring to become a technical 



PASSING EDUCATION AROUND 33 

college. And we find agricultural schools and col- 
leges devoting their attention largely to the high- 
brow farmer and to the turning out of gentlemen 
farmers and scientific experts, instead of meeting 
the needs of the man on the farm who can not go 
to the university but must get what he can within 
walking distance of home. 

In a democracy, the problem of universal educa- 
tion is twofold. While preparing all people to make 
a living and to live, the educational system must 
also keep open the way for the humblest to attain 
the very highest plane which he is capable of reach- 
ing. It must prepare not merely for leadership 
but for the discovery of potential leadership in the 
mass. All grades of schools should therefore be 
provided at public expense. It is a mistake to as- 
sume that universal education as expressed in voca- 
tional education is antagonistic to high schools and 
colleges. It may change their methods and point of 
view and make them more efficient, but the purpose 
is not to destroy but to supplement. The demand 
is simply that we do for all youth what the high 
schools and colleges are doing for some by finding 
out the needs of youth and striving to meet them in 
practical fashion. Democracy needs efficient educa- 
tion for the rank and file as well as for the leaders. 

Observation and common knowledge show that 
the kind of education by which the mass of people 
may profit has to do with their occupation or their 



34 LEARNING TO EARN 

life career. Ninety per cent, of the people earn their 
living with their hands and their chief interest after 
maturity is in their occupation, their home and the 
social and civic life of the community. 

Not many perhaps have heretofore learned a voca- 
tion. Desirable as it may be to do so, not all youth 
will study a vocation even when the facilities are 
provided to train them for it. In fact, the number 
in school who will actually pick an industrial voca- 
tion at sixteen will not seriously burden the facili- 
ties which the schools may readily provide. It takes 
foresight and steadiness of purpose to choose a vo- 
cation and prepare for it. There is to the boy what 
seems an easier way. Too often, he takes the path 
of least resistance and drifts into "blind alley" and 
"no thoroughfare" jobs. There comes a time in his 
life, however, when sobered by work and experi- 
ence, he realizes his handicap and is ready to turn 
seriously to the means of training himself for bet- 
ter things. This new purpose may come early or it 
may be delayed, but if the ordained agencies of 
education are alive to their responsibilities, they will 
be constantly on the alert to open the way for each 
individual and provide the means to make the "way 
out" a reality. The opportunity must be provided 
for all, for "equality of opportunity is the essence of 
democracy." 

The plan for universal education must frankly 
recognize, therefore, that practically all education 



PASSING EDUCATION AROUND 35 

for youth over fourteen or sixteen years of age who 
are out of school must be connected with their occu- 
pational interests. If their occupation has been 
chosen wisely, the youth and the adult will find the 
life-career motive impelling him to perfect himself 
in the work he is doing, or has been driven to do. 
If the occupation has not been chosen wisely, there 
will be a constant effort at readjustment on the part 
of progressive men and women. Encouragement 
should be given and the means of education pro- 
vided both for those who have found a permanent 
vocation and those who have not, to continue their 
education in order to seek greater efficiency^or a 
satisfactory adjustment to a better life career. With- 
out such encouragement men and women find their 
work dreary monotony; hope for the future is 
dimmed; aimless drifting from job to job results, 
and social unrest is fomented. The results are dis- 
astrous to individual progress and to social welfare. 
Universal education seeks to make progress pos- 
sible for all people, through an articulation of 
knowledge with the vocational work in which they 
engage. The knowledge imparted will be simple or 
complex to fit the needs of the unskilled workers, 
the skilled artisan, or the trained business or pro- 
fessional man. To realize the ideal of universality, 
the agencies of education must make a close analysis 
of the occupations of men without prejudice to the 
humblest job in which the crudest intellects and most 



36 LEARNING TO EARN 

unskilled hands labor. Even there knowledge and 
training may be estabHshed which will protect life, 
preserve strength, and make for a more "comforta- 
ble subsistence." From the data of occupations a 
program for a complete system of education may 
be readily worked out, the guiding purpose of which 
shall be to give equal, if not identical, opportunity to 
all "to grow in power and appreciation." 

But, it is objected, how can education be made 
directly applicable to the hundreds of vocations and 
possible lines of work? Is not the system founded 
upon a theory of perfection not to be attained? 
Granted that the problem is a vast one and almost 
untouched, that is no excuse for delay in undertak- 
ing it. The importance of it to the public welfare 
is so great that no time should be lost on critics who 
point out its difficulties. "The way to resume is to 
resume" was a famous phrase and its applicability 
to our situation is striking. 

Happily there are examples in our midst for 
guidance. Experience has been accumulating until 
a respectable body of reliable facts and practise may 
be utilized for our purposes. More than a hundred 
separate trades are being taught in different public 
and private schools in this country, not to draw 
upon the experience of foreign countries where in 
one city alone — Munich — more than fifty trades are 
taught. Add to all of these the education which is 
given as a foundation for several vocations and we 



PASSING EDUCATION AROUND Z7 

find examples of a practical and complete vocational 
education given in a large part of the most impor- 
tant vocations in which men earn their daily bread. 

But, persists the critic, what are you going to do 
in the communities which can not provide a means 
of education in more than two or three vocations at 
the most? Are you going to educate every boy as 
a carpenter or a blacksmith? There is a danger 
here to be sure, but it is more or less imaginary 
and at most only temporary. The school in decid- 
ing what it can teach in a vocational way with its 
limited means, must consider local conditions and 
advantages. If there is some preponderating voca- 
tion in the community which most of the youth will 
eventually enter, the problem is somewhat simple. 
The natural and effective thing to do is to teach 
that vocation in such a way as to make men effi- 
cient and to broaden their powers as workers in it. 
For the vocations in which only a few are employed, 
the school can not maintain distinct trade courses 
but it can group the fundamentals of several voca- 
tions in such a way as to give a solid foundation 
supplementing the practical training of the vocation 
received in actual practise. For example, a sys- 
tematic education in blue-print reading will be of 
fundamental educational value to many trades. 

In smaller places the workers may have to go to 
neighboring cities for special trades. In some cases 
in the more thickly settled communities two or more 



38 LEARNING TO EARN 

communities may join together for the maintenance 
of vocational schools as contemplated in the laws of 
Massachusetts and Indiana. In all schools whether 
in cities, towns or rural districts there can be such 
an industrializing of the regular school work as will 
lay the foundations for vocational work and at the 
same time give a better industrial understanding and 
social sympathy. 



CHAPTER III 

WHEREIN THE PRESENT SYSTEM FAILS 

Statistics of school attendance — Why children leave school — 
Neglect of life-career motive — What does education do for 
those who quit school early — Schools fail to train for self- 
preservation — Little vocational training — Rural education un- 
suited to needs — The weaknesses of agricultural colleges — 
Development of agricultural science — Science of commerce 
and industry still dormant — Important education obtainable 
only in nooks and corners — Schools train for higher grades — 
No stopping place — Education stops at the school door — Re- 
sults of education obtainable only by a few — The raw materi- 
als to work upon. % 

How far are the schools meeting the needs of the 
people of this country in supplying education which 
adjusts the individual to his environment, and how 
nearly does our system provide that universal educa- 
tion required if the schools are really and truly to 
become the "hope of this democracy" ? 

The Report of the United States Commissioner of 
Education for 1913 states that seventy-eight per 
cent, of the persons between five and eighteen years 
of age were enrolled in schools, and that the average 
daily attendance in all schools was fifty-eight per 
cent, of the total enrolled, while the average daily 
attendance was for less than ninety days. But these 
figures in the aggregate are not so impressive as 

39 



40 LEARNING TO EARN 

those which indicate the time when children leave 
school. The best estimates available — most schools 
do not keep statistics on this important phase — indi- 
cate that fully ten per cent, have left the school at 
thirteen; forty at fourteen; seventy at fifteen, and 
eighty-five at sixteen years of age.^ 

Statistics of their advancement are even more 
impressive since we have set up the standard of 
graduation from the elementary schools as the mini- 
mum of schooling for the youth of the land. 

It may be stated according to Ayres that the gen- 
eral tendency of city school systems is to carry all 
of the children through the fifth grade. About half 
of the total reach the final elementary grade and 
about ten per cent, reach the final year in high 
school. These percentages vary in different cities. 
Typical examples of high percentages retained to 
the final year in high school are : 

Newton, Mass 38 per cent. 

Worcester, Mass 29 per cent. 

Aurora, 111 25 per cent. 

Newark, Ohio 25 per cent. 

Decatur, 111 24 per cent. 

Haverhill, Mass 24 per cent. 

Fitchburg, Mass 23 per cent. 

Kansas City, Mo 22 per cent. 

Somerville, Mass 22 per cent. 



^ Ayres' Laggards in Our Schools, p. 31. 



THE PRESENT SYSTEM 41 

At the other extreme are, Chicago, Cincinnati, 
Paterson (N. J.) and Reading (Pa.), where five 
per cent, reach the final high-school grade; Ho- 
boken, where four per cent, reach the final high- 
school grade, and Camden, Jersey City, Newark, 
New York, Philadelphia and Wheeling, where only 
three per cent, reach the final high-school grade. 

The point at which pupils leave school varies, 
although on the average one-half have left before 
the completion of the elementary grades. Some 
cities begin to lose pupils in large numbers as early 
as the fourth and fifth grades. While in one city — 
Quincy, Massachusetts — eighty-two per cent, of all 
who enter go through the elementary grades. * 

It is evident from these figures that the ideal of 
universal education is not being realized by the 
schools. Millions of the youth of the land have 
left the schools with no further preparation than 
that given by the first four, five or six grades, and 
practically no facilities have been provided for any 
further training at public expense. 

Universal education is not a reality for the coun- 
try as a whole, nor for any single community, since 
for different parts of the country thirty to fifty per 
cent, do not reach the final elementary grade, and 
in the city having the most favorable record sixteen 
per cent, do not receive a complete elementary 
schooling, nor do they get any after-training 
through the public schools. 



42 LEARNING TO EARN 

Commenting upon the record of school attend- 
ance for 1913, the commissioner of education said: 
"An average of ninety days in school and two hun- 
dred and seventy-five out of school gives a danger- 
ously small amount of schooling for the future 
citizens of our democratic republic. ... At 
this rate the total average schooling for each 
child to prepare it for life and for making a living, 
for society and the duties of citizenship, is only one 
thousand one hundred and seventy days."^ 

An analysis shows several reasons for the abnor- 
mal defection from school, chief of which are: 
inability to forego wage-earning ; failure to respond 
to the formal teaching of the book; unsuitability of 
subject-matter to the needs and capacities of the 
pupil; and, lastly, the fact which is plain to all 
parents and pupils, that at the end of each successive 
grade the students are in no better position to enter 
upon a life career than before. 

All of these reasons why children leave school 
center around the failure to connect the school with 
the life-career motive of the learner. The life- 
career motive is the principal impelling force keep- 
ing children in school after the compulsory period, 
and the schools in failing to give broad vocational 
training neglect the means of utilizing this motive. 

What is it that inspires men and women to apply 
themselves to the tasks of study with earnestness? 



Report 1913, p. xvi. 



THE PRESENT SYSTEM 43 

Primarily, it is the motive of personal advancement. 
Show a man how he can better his economic condi- 
tion by acquiring further knowledge and he will 
assiduously seek to acquire it if his ambition has not 
atrophied; show a youth how the knowledge which 
the school gives couples up with a life-work or even 
a temporary employment, and he seeks the knowl- 
edge eagerly; and show an ambitious worker how 
he can overcome the difficulties of his trade by 
evening courses or correspondence work and he 
applies himself to study with vigor. 

It is the life-career motive that makes students of 
professional, normal, industrial and trade schools 
more diligent in their work, and the results more 
fruitful. Decry as we may the practical in educa- 
tion, we are confronted by the fact that young and 
old alike respond to the stimulus of applying knowl- 
edge practically, and are languid and purposeless in 
the pursuit of knowledge the utility of which they 
can not see. 

But this motive so essential for effective educa- 
tion is quite generally neglected in the schools. In- 
deed, it is often discouraged. President Eliot de- 
clares that the schools fail to perform the animating 
and selective task of arousing and maintaining the 
interests of pupils, especially from twelve to sixteen 
years of age. 

"Multitudes of American children," he says, 
"taking no interest in their school work, or seeing 



44 LEARNING TO EARN 

no connection between their studies and the means 
of later earning a good liveHhood, drop out of 
school far too early of their own accord, or at least 
offer no effective resistance to the desire of unwise 
parents that they stop study and go to work. More- 
over, from lack of interest, they acquire while in 
school a listless way of working. 

"Again, interest in their studies is not universal 
among that small proportion of American children 
who go into a secondary school ; and in every college 
a perceptible proportion of the students exhibit a 
languid interest, or no interest, in their studies, and 
therefore bring little to pass during the very pre- 
cious years of college life."^ 

What does education do for the fifty per cent, of 
the nation's children who leave the schools before 
completing the elementary courses ? Has education 
performed its functions of adjusting these millions 
to the conditions in which they are placed and im- 
planting in them the inspiration to grow in power 
and appreciation? 

These are questions to which a militant democ- 
racy is beginning to seek an answer. Having an- 
swered these questions, it might be in order to con- 
sider the case of the forty per cent, who go through 
the elementary school and partly through the high 
school ; and, lastly, the case of the ten per cent, who 
graduate from high school, some of whom get into 
college, to see how nearly the schools come to the 
ideal of education for them. 

^ Address, National Educational Association, Boston, 1910. 



THE PRESENT SYSTEM 45 

It will be taken for granted that education must 
give as a minimum the possession of the tools of 
knowledge and of fundamental facts, and should 
establish "habits, attitudes and ideals." All after- 
education, general or vocational, can be built only 
upon such a foundation. Doubtless, the essential 
tools, reading, writing and arithmetic, are taught 
with a keener appreciation of their fundamental 
importance than ever before, but it would be a bold 
person who would assume that any considerable 
portion of the children in the group who leave school 
at fourteen, or before, are equipped with power to 
read interpretatively, to express clearly, or to do the 
ordinary every-day computations. Yet these arft all 
essential to their freedom and their protection. 

What else is given to these millions of our youth 
by the school? Practically nothing. Not one in a 
thousand derive other benefits. It gives little knowl- 
edge conducive to self-preservation or that will 
facilitate gaining a livelihood, leaving such knowl- 
edge to be picked up at random in after life ; it gives 
slight knowledge of the duties of home or of parent- 
hood, and little power or insight into the duties of 
citizenship. These great masses of children, un- 
equipped for life, are cast into the industrial strug- 
gle. Lack of knowledge makes their experience 
blind. The way of progress is barred because they 
do not have the necessary tools to weld experience 
and knowledge into power for success. Practically 



46 LEARNING TO EARN 

all are doomed to hard monotonous toil, without 
hope or outlook to relieve it. 

To take up the matter more specifically, there is 
little teaching of value in the schools of this country 
relating to the first problem of man's existence, that 
of self-preservation. Aside from attempts at teach- 
ing physiology and hygiene, and the effects of alco- 
hol and narcotics, which many states now require, 
there is no attempt to guard man through knowledge 
from the dangers which beset his path. Even the 
teaching of physiology, hygiene and the effects of 
alcohol and narcotics is so inefficiently done in many 
cases as to raise the question of the utility, if not 
the morality, of their teaching. 

A minute search of educational institutions, col- 
legiate as well as elementary, would disclose no im- 
portant teaching intended to guard the worker 
through knowledge from the dangers of industrial 
accidents and diseases. "Safety first" campaigns 
for industrial safety are planned and conducted out- 
side the school and with no particular sympathy 
shown by the schools. It is as though the school 
considered its function to be wholly unrelated to the 
ordinary daily life of the individual, and that all 
things relating to his physical welfare contaminate 
the holy precincts of education. 

Plenty of examples may be found where food 
values for hogs and cattle are taught, but the diet of 
human beings is a matter which drags educational 



THE PRESENT SYSTEM 47 

ideals in the mire. Diseases of plants and animals 
are intelligently studied, but outside the medical col- 
leges the diseases of human beings are scarcely 
alluded to. Yet, the new day demands a study of 
all these things relating to man's physical welfare. 
Conditions of living have changed. The complex- 
ities of man's dependence are such that organized 
instruction for self-protection is now an absolute 
necessity, and the school is the only public agency 
in a position to give it. 

Education was formerly almost exclusively voca- 
tional. The few that were educated in the schools 
were educated for some calling. The education of 
the prince, when education was confined to princes, 
was vocational. When learning was confined largely 
to the clergy, men were trained for the church. The 
Athenian ideal of education was for the perform- 
ance of the duties of citizenship, and citizens were 
trained. The Romans added law and trained for 
that vocation. The Middle Ages saw great univer- 
sities of law, medicine and theology. These pro- 
fessions were the ends of education and remained 
so for many centuries, almost down to our own 
times. All that men needed to know about the other 
vocations was gained by other means than formal 
education. The need for education in other prac- 
tical callings was not great, and the means were at 
hand in the apprenticeship system. 

We still train men in the vocations of the church, 



48 LEARNING TO EARN 

the law and medicine, and to these have been added 
many other vocations for which some preparation is 
given. But we find that vastly wider training is 
needed to meet the complexities of our progressive 
civilized life. The democratic ideal, too, has em- 
phasized that every man must have equal opportu- 
nity not merely to get a particular kind of education, 
but to get that kind of education best suited to his 
need and capacity. The old scheme of education 
for practical arts has broken down and men are 
adrift in the mazes of industrial life. Where voca- 
tional education a few decades ago met the condi- 
tions by educating for the few learned professions, 
it must now educate for the many practical arts as 
well as the learned vocations. The obligation is 
specially emphasized by the fact that the education 
of to-day is principally at public expense, and there 
can be no proper discrimination. 

The schools have not met the new conditions. 
They have not kept pace with the changing life. 
They have undoubtedly taught well the things which 
they have taught, but the question now before the 
public concerns the usefulness of teaching much 
that is taught. Certain it is that as far as fitting 
youth to meet his most urgent problem — that of 
earning a living — very little has been accomplished. 

The Federal Commission on Vocational Educa- 
tion declared that not more than one person in a 
hundred had been trained properly for the work 



THE PRESENT SYSTEM 49 

they were doing. "There are more workers being 
trained at public expense," the report declares, "in 
the city of Munich, Germany, than in all the great 
cities of the United States representing a population 
of more than 12,000,000." 

Agricultural colleges are found in every state, but 
until very recent times, and largely yet, these insti- 
tutions were colleges for the preparation of scien- 
tists — not for farmers who work on the soil. No 
serious attempt has been made until recently to 
know what kind of knowledge the farmer, as a 
farmer, needed, and instead of giving courses suited 
to his needs, there grew up the scientific agricultural 
college with absurd academic entrance requirements 
and courses which barred the very people it should 
reach. 

The development in this way had, however, one 
compensation. It created a body of literature relat- 
ing to the scientific process of agriculture and thus 
gave the materials to be translated into terms under- 
standable by the farmer. It has opened the way for 
the development of real vocational education in agri- 
culture. The next step is to put the knowledge of 
agriculture now existing into the hands of every 
person who tills the soil. "It is obviously less impor- 
tant," said Lester F. Ward, "that a great amount of 
intelligence shall exist than that the data of intelli- 
gence shall be in the possession of all," and the 
application of the thought to agriculture is striking. 



50 LEARNING TO EARN 

This has not been done, and after forty years of 
agricultural education, such as it has been, we are 
confronted with worse conditions than when knowl- 
edge of agriculture first began to get serious atten- 
tion. Average yields of farm crops have been either 
practically at a dead level or are decreasing, the soil 
is being exhausted at an alarming rate, tenantry is 
increasing, the rural population is shifting to the 
city, and the cost of living rises at a rate far in 
excess of increased capacity to pay. The facts are 
simply that the data of agricultural science have not 
been put into possession of the men who till the soil. 

The state colleges and schools of agriculture, the 
state experiment stations, the extension departments 
and the county agents of agriculture are doing a 
great work in diffusing the knowledge fundamental 
to a farmer's work. But the results so much needed 
can only be permanently achieved by educating the 
boy in a vocational school of agriculture within his 
reach, to be a farmer capable of applying knowledge 
to his soil, and the girl who is happy in the country 
to be a home-maker in the farm home. 

Much has been done in many parts of the country 
due to the vision and initiative of individuals. The 
rural schools as a whole have, however, been sleep- 
ing on their opportunity. They have been following 
a regimen of studies utterly unfitted to their environ- 
ment. The teaching of reading, writing, arithmetic, 



THE PRESENT SYSTEM 51 

geography, spelling, grammar, history and other 
elementary studies has been formal to a degree that 
is shocking to common sense. Instead of relating 
these studies to the life motives of the young, and 
teaching them in such a way as to connect them with 
life; instead of taking advantage of the opportu- 
nities which in the country are unequaled for apply- 
ing knowledge to things, the schools have been 
allowing the children to live off the dry husks of 
knowledge. Teachers for these schools have been 
trained in the village or city high schools and have 
perhaps gone through formal training in normals or 
colleges. They have little sympathy with rural life 
and their knowledge of the country is limited. •It is 
ridiculous to see a teacher of this sort, who may not 
know barley from beans, attempting to teach agri- 
culture in a flower-pot in the winter time to red- 
blooded rural youth. Such has been the teaching in 
a great part of our rural schools. False standards 
are set up, boys and girls are made to dislike edu- 
cational work, and such influence as the school 
exercises is in favor of the trend away from the 
country. 

But inadequate as it has been, progress has been 
greater in agricultural education, including the farm 
home, than in the education for industry or com- 
merce. At least the scientific data for such educa- 
tion have been partly discovered and formulated. 



52 LEARNING TO EARN 

Beginnings in the discovery and formulation of the 
scientific data for industry and commerce have 
scarcely been made. 

Agricultural experiment stations have supplied 
the raw materials to work out the pattern of educa- 
tion for the farm and the home. Industrial and 
commercial experiment stations have yet to be 
organized in the same large way to supply the raw 
material to solve the problem of education for in- 
dustry and commerce. 

No adequate knowledge of the processes of indus- 
try and commerce, the needs of workers or the con- 
ditions of efficiency and success are available upon 
which to base a sound industrial or commercial edu- 
cation. So far as these callings are concerned, the 
schools must begin at the very beginning and build 
up the scientific data and make its application to the 
needs of industry and commerce and the workers 
engaged in them. 

Herbert Spencer, speaking of the English schools 
of fifty years ago, foretold the weaknesses of our 
own schools in this respect when he said that that 
which most concerns the business of life is almost 
entirely left out of our schools. 

"All of our industries would cease," he said, 
"were it not for that information which men begin 
to acquire as they best may after their education is 
said to be finished, and were it not for this informa- 
tion which has been from age to age accumulated 



THE PRESENT SYSTEM 53 

and spread by unofficial means, these industries 
would never have existed. That increasing ac- 
quaintance with the laws of phenomena which has 
through successive ages enabled us to subjugate 
nature to our needs, and in these days gives the 
common laborer comforts which a few centuries 
ago kings could not purchase, is scarcely in any 
degree owed to the appointed means of instructing 
our youth. The vital knowledge — that by which we 
have grown as a nation to what we are, and which 
now underlies our whole existence — is a knowledge 
that has gotten itself taught in nooks and corners, 
while the ordained agencies for teaching have been 
mumbling dead formulas." 

One of the most pointed criticisms of the scjiools 
is that they devote their energies to preparing pupils 
to enter the next higher grade. The elementary 
school prepares for the high school, the high school 
prepares for the college, and the college prepares 
for the university. Those who fail to be promoted 
are ignorantly dubbed ''laggards." 

One regimen of studies is set out for the children 
of all the people with little regard to the sympathies 
and capacities of each. If they can profit by the 
instruction offered they are advanced regularly from 
grade to grade and graduate amid the praises of 
friends, but if their particular powers do not re- 
spond to the uniform course and the formal methods 
of teaching, they are rapidly made to feel that their 
place IS not in school. 



54 LEARNING TO EARN 

The justification of this system — if it can be justi- 
fied at all — must be found in the par excellence of 
the education which is given in the various grades, 
from the kindergarten to the university. Our com- 
pulsory education laws are justified only on the 
premise that the education offered is the best that ! 
can be devised for the children who are compelled 
to take it. One fact is patent to all educational 
observers, namely, that the colleges dominate the 
high schools and the high schools in turn dominate 
the elementary schools by holding up the bogy of 
entrance requirements. 

The courses are, therefore, generally shaped for 
the few who are headed for the college, and the 
needs of the many are ignored. The impressive fact 
that ninety per cent, leave the school along the way 
seems to be overlooked in organizing school courses. 

At no place is there any adequate terminal facil- 
ities for the youth who goes to work short of the 
university professional school. Even the colleges do 
not offer any particular connection with the life 
career except for an insignificant percentage. 

No objection can be raised to the open way which 
offers the chance to attain the highest educational 
plane. It is a fundamental strength of our democ- 
racy that opportunity is open to the humblest to rise 
to noble heights through learning, but it should be 
no less fundamental that the rights of all to the 



THE PRESENT SYSTEM 55 

equal enjoyment of all that they are capable of 
attaining should be promoted. 

The formality is such in our schools that educa- 
tion is looked upon as an end to be attained in the 
period of attendance. It nowhere seems to be 
looked upon as the beginning of education which 
should continue throughout life. School education 
and after-education are thought to be entirely differ- 
ent species. Instead of making the two harmonize, 
the whole emphasis is put upon "finishing" the edu- 
cation of our boys and girls in the schools. In 
consequence, the day the youth leaves school his 
education, except by experience, stops. How many 
boys and girls turn back to their books after\^ard? 
That they do not is conclusive proof that education 
is not a continuing process. The fortunately circum- 
stanced go on to college, where, to a large extent, 
the same formal methods produce like results. 
Some take hold of courses offered by private or 
correspondence schools and get a new hold on the 
educational ladder, but the great mass of youth cut 
themselves off from all educational work forever. 

Do the schools accomplish the prime purpose of 
adjusting the individual to his environment, and do 
they provide such adjustment for all the individuals 
in society? If further evidence were needed, it can 
readily be supplied by authoritative contemporary 
criticism. 



56 LEARNING TO EARN 

"We are confronted everywhere in the world by 
this fact," said President Nicholas Murray Butler, 
''that while mankind is endeavoring to adapt the 
individual to the environment by education and 
training, we have thus far been successful only in 
providing a means of adaptation for the compara- 
tively few select survivors of a long, arduous and 
expensive educational process. A boy, for instance, 
beginning in the elementary school can go on 
through the high school, the college and the univer- 
sity and can prepare himself for a career as an 
engineer, whether civil, mining, metallurgical, me- 
chanical, chemical or electric. The same boy can, 
if he prefers, begin in the elementary school, go 
through high school, college and university and pre- 
pare himself for the practise of medicine and sur- 
gery, or for the practise of law, or for the duties of 
the teacher, or as an architect. The select few who 
can survive this process, and can meet the cost of it, 
are able to adapt themselves to their environment 
in a most admirable fashion anywhere in the world, 
whether in America or in Europe. They are trained 
to take hold of life with a firm grip at some partic- 
ular point, and then the problem of success or failure 
rests with their own several characters and abilities. 
Society has done its part in offering them an organ- 
ized and effective opportunity for preparation. 

"But to the great mass of human beings this op- 
portunity is not open. All over the world we have 
now brought these young people, by various types of 
compulsory legislation, under the influence of the 
elementary school for, let us say, the years from six 
or seven to thirteen or fourteen. This great mass 
of boys and girls get the very admirable and very 
effective training of the elementary school, but for 



THE PRESENT SYSTEM 57 

well-known economic reasons they can not take 
advantage of what society has to offer beyond that. 
They are compelled to go out and take hold of life 
as best they can at that tender age, unadapted, un- 
fitted, with no specific tentacle ready to grip any 
particular hanging rope on which to climb to eco- 
nomic independence or security."* 

Doctor Andrew S. Draper saw clearly the defects 
of the schools and boldly expressed his views in 
these words : 

"When but one-third of the children remain to 
the end of the elementary course, there is something 
the matter with the schools. When half of the men 
who are responsible for the business activities, and 
who are guiding the political life of the country, 
tell us that children from the elementary schools are 
not able to do definite things required in the world's 
real affairs, there is something the matter with the 
schools. When work seeks workers and young men 
and women are indifferent to it, or do not know 
how to do it, there is something the matter with the 
schools."^ 

And again he said: 

"Our elementary schools train for no industrial 
employment — they lead to nothing but the secondary 
school, which in turn leads to the college, the uni- 
versity and the professional school, and so very 
exclusively to professional and managing occupa- 

* Vocational Education^ an address before the Commercial 
Club of Chicago, 1913. 
^ Draper : American Education, p. 275. 



58 LEARNING TO EARN 

tions. One who goes out of the school system be- 
fore the end or at the end of the elementary course 
is not only unprepared for any vocation which will 
be open to him, but too commonly he is without that 
intellectual training which should make him eager 
for opportunity and incite him to the utmost effort 
to do just as well as he can whatever may be open 
to him. He goes without respect for the manual 
industries where he might find work if he could do 
it. He is without the simple preparation necessary 
to do definite work in an office or a store. He is 
neither clear about his English nor certain about his 
figures."^ 

Since the ideal of universal education for adjust- 
ment has not been attained and can be attained only 
through the occupations in which men engage, the 
first duty of the schools should be to analyze the 
vocations of life. 

There are in this country ten million persons en- 
gaged in trades and industries who have not been 
properly trained for the work they are doing and 
who are not in a position to grow in vocational 
power; there are thirteen million farmers without 
adequate scientific and practical knowledge to suc- 
ceed under modern conditions ; there are seven mil- 
lion persons engaged in commercial pursuits, includ- 
ing transportation, most of whom have had scarcely 
any broad training for their responsibilities, and 
there are twenty million home-makers, a large part 
® Draper: American Education, p. 27B. 



THE PRESENT SYSTEM 59 

of whom are incapable through lack of knowledge 
and training to realize the ideal of the home and to 
make its business side a success. Only a small num- 
ber of these workers have been specially trained by 
the educational system. While the former means of 
training have been breaking down under social 
changes, no adequate substitutes have been as yet 
provided. It is to these masses of our population 
that the schools must first address their efforts and 
to the millions who each year are recruited from the 
schools for the ranks of trade, industry, commerce 
and the home. 

We shall now proceed to analyze these great 
occupational interests to determine their demands 
and the needs of the workers in them. 



CHAPTER IV 

INDUSTRY AND ITS EDUCATIONAL NEEDS 

The economic and social basis of industrial progress — Lack 
of skilled workers — Exploitation of our natural resources — 
Collapse of trade union apprenticeship — Opposition to the 
corporation trade school — Chaos in industry — Waste caused 
by industrial unrest — Cooperation is the ultimate goal — The 
problem of monotony in employment — Training for accident 
prevention — Our industrial history is ignored in the schools — 
The importance of a thoroughgoing survey of industry. 

Developments in our national life which have 
come about with growth of the population have 
transformed us suddenly from an agrarian into an 
industrial society, whence have arisen economic 
problems of vast import to the comfort of our peo- 
ple. Adjustments in industry have not kept pace 
with our need of improved processes and greater 
human skill. Competition has laid bare the shams 
of our affected excellence, the hollo wness of our 
conceit in manufacture and industrial production. 

Two chief causes may be assigned for the Amer- 
ican effort to grasp the problem of industry and 
with scientific insight search out and analyze its 
ramifications. They are the widening conviction 
that industrial production has failed to generate 
wholesome influences for civic betterment among 
the men and women engaged in industry and the 

60 



INDUSTRY AND ITS NEEDS 61 

complementary condition that the products of our 
factories and workshops are inferior and hence our 
opportunity for growing world trade restricted. 
"As the ability of a nation to hold its own against 
other nations depends on the skilled activity of its 
units," says Herbert Spencer/ "we see that on such 
knowledge may turn the national fate." 

Still another explanation of the origin of voca- 
tional, or, in this particular connection, industrial 
education, closely related to the other two, is the 
wide-spread belief that the public schools in failing 
to train young men and women for ability to earn 
an abundance of good white bread, were failing to 
perform their most natural mission. 

Time and again in this country reformers have 
failed to make any headway with a new program 
until they were able somehow to connect it with 
leaks in revenue or loss of profit. Once they were 
able to show the connection between an obsolete 
order and growing deficits, little effort was neces- 
sary to move the most stupid of reactionaries. Just 
as soon as the proponents of industrial education 
were able to show the manufacturer he was losing 
trade in world markets because of poorly-trained 
workmen, the manufacturer was willing to listen to 
what was urged in behalf of industrial education. 
It did not require the pronouncement of a German 



^ What Knowledge Is of Most Worth in Education, D. Ap- 
pleton & Co., 1866, p. 47. 



62 LEARNING TO EARN 

commission that America was not to be feared as a 
world competitor so long as its workmen were 
trained by empirical methods; the secret of German 
ascendency in world markets properly was attrib- 
uted to its elaborate scheme of industrial education 
sustained by the German state. Thus was the man- 
ufacturer arrayed on the side of industrial education 
in this country. Thus did the consciousness of his 
own shortsightedness break through the crust of 
prejudice and ignorance. Since the beginning of 
the present war the world has learned to its very 
great surprise how very far scientific concern for 
industry has emancipated Germany from any de- 
pendence economically upon the rest of the world. 
'^ The present needs of industry, viewed in their 
economic aspects, and from that point of view only, 
may be thus summarized : 

I. A greater investment of labor or skill in the 
finished product of industry. 

II. Right relationship between employers and 
employees, which involves a cooperative effort by 
employer and employee. 

III. Relief of the workers from monotonous 
employment as far as relief is possible. 

IV. Reduction of the hazard of industrial em- 
ployment by several methods, chief of which is the 
education of employers and employees in accident 
prevention and to the point of view that industrial 
accidents are wasteful. 



INDUSTRY AND ITS NEEDS 63 

V. An educational system that will develop 
gumption, initiative, independence, patience, imag- 
ination, invention and self-reliance and eliminate 
awkwardness among workers. 

VI. A thorough survey of our whole industrial 
system that will determine the social value of each 
industry and fix the recognition to be accorded it 
a.s a social factor. 

"We are twenty-five years behind most of the 
nations that we recognize as competitors," says the 
report of the committee of the National Association 
of Manufacturers on Industrial Education, made in 
1912.^ "We must come nearer to the level of inter- 
national competition. As every manufacttiring 
establishment must have a first-class mechanical 
equipment and management, so also it must have in 
its workmen skill equal to that of competitors, do- 
mestic or foreign. The native ability, the intuitive 
insight, courage and resourcefulness of American 
workmen is quite unsurpassed. They are the broth- 
ers of the *men behind the guns.' It is their mis- 
fortune that they have not been given by their coun- 
try that measure of technical instruction that is their 
due, and are by no means equal in technical skill to 
the workers of continental Europe. . . . 

"Providence has been kind to us, but Providence 
is likely now to leave us a little more to our own 
intelligence. We must henceforth sell more brains 
and less raw material. We must, to the utmost 



^ Report of Committee on Industrial Education, at Seven- 
teenth Annual Convention, New York City, May 21, 1912; 
iH. E. Miles, Chairman of the Committee. 



64 LEARNING TO EARN 

degree, develop our human efficiencies. In them is 
a natural resource, and the only one that increases 
with use and will increase forever and immeasur- 
ably. Other nations, lacking our raw materials, 
make the cultivation of their human resources the 
substantial basis of their prosperity and happiness." 

So long as our natural resources appeared inex- 
haustible — and they did so appear until compara- 
tively recent years — our industrial development, 
such as it was, quite reasonably centered about the 
exploitation of these resources. Moreover, railroad 
building on a gigantic scale facilitated the exploita- 
tion of bulky crude products of the earth. Ameri- 
cans might make handsome profits from the sale of 
crude pig iron, which Germany bought of us and to 
which Germany added the patient experimentation 
of its chemists and the skill of its artisans. So long 
as crude iron ore appeared inexhaustible we were 
willing to accept our profits from mining, and per- 
haps the simple processes of reduction, and to pay 
back to Germany fifty or one hundred times the 
value of the original raw product, which represented 
Germany's investment of intelligence and skill in the 
finished product. 

Recently we have been taking an inventory of 
our natural resources. We have found a stock we 
had believed inexhaustible to be sadly depleted. It 
is not, therefore, surprising that we have agreed 
upon a policy of conservation — a strange word with 



INDUSTRY AND ITS NEEDS 65 

new meaning each season. We have determined to 
pursue the policy of our most successful competitor, 
and we likewise are generally agreed that the same 
end must be attained by the same means ; that is, by 
industrial education. 

Perhaps our industrial atmosphere has been ob- 
scured by a few epochal inventions — the steamboat, 
electric telegraph and telephone, the reaper and the 
sewing-machine. Perhaps our self-complacency, 
our national conceit, was founded upon the admitted 
transformation wrought by these inventions. Yet 
these inventions were no more useful to us in the 
exploitation of our resources than to Germany and 
England in getting our raw products cheaply for 
manufacture into finished articles. We are still 
accredited with the manufacture of superior agri- 
cultural implements and superior sewing-machines, 
but here the story ends. 

The fact still remains that the value added in the 
manufacture of raw products in this country is only 
two-thirds of the value of raw products used; that 
is, for every three dollars' value of raw products 
we add two dollars' value by manufacture. By in- 
telligence and skill Germany adds to the value of the 
raw product another value which is two and two- 
thirds times the original value. In other words, for 
every three dollars of original value in raw products 
Germany adds eight additional dollars' value in the 
process of manufacture. 



66 LEARNING TO EARN 

Our mistaken notion that our raw products were 
inexhaustible, and the further fact that a satisfac- 
tory profit could be obtained from the production of 
raw material, are partially responsible for the pres- 
ent chaotic state of industry. Another fact is also 
painfully apparent. We have not possessed the 
skilled labor with which to perform the finer proc- 
esses of industrial art. 

Not only do we suffer great loss from incomplete 
production, due to want of skill, but our processes 
are inefficient and wasteful. Until quite recently 
we paid little or no attention to the human methods 
in industry and there was little experimentation for 
correct standards. Men were assigned to this ma- 
chine or that machine, this process or that process, 
and left to toil without any well-determined notion 
of how the volume of their output would balance 
with the output of other men operating other ma- 
chines or engaged in other processes. Accurate data 
for fair standards were not available. There was 
little information at hand to indicate whether indi- 
vidual workmen were efficient; whether they were 
performing their tasks by the shortest cuts possible. 

Germany has won many trade battles in her in- 
dustrial laboratories. Everything possible is done 
to eliminate waste in manufacturing processes. An 
institute for coal-mining research, designed to work 
out processes for saving all the by-products, such 
as ammonia and coal tar, and thereby reducing the 



INDUSTRY AND ITS NEEDS 67 

cost of fuel, has just been opened in that country. 
It is only one of the many similar institutes for 
scientific research which give expert advice to every 
department of industry. 

Training for industry, if it realizes the purposes 
of its proponents, will make of every worker, 
grounded in the science of industrial production, an 
experimenter for improved methods and new ways. 
It offers an opportunity to widen the sources of 
industrial research by making every man a research 
student instead of a devitalized and de-energized 
automaton. It will democratize the industrial lab- 
oratory and open the door, heretofore to be entered 
by a mere handful of men, to the many. The Na- 
tional Cash Register is the product not of a single 
genius, but of hundreds of men employed in the 
factory, who have for the promise of substantial 
reward devoted themselves to the improvement of 
each and every part. Industrial education will uni- 
versalize the methods by which one company has 
produced a cash register that has no equal on the 
market. — . 

Until recent years the trade union system of ap- 
prenticeship was our sole source of skilled mechan- 
ics. But apprenticeship had its origin and served its 
purpose in an industrial order altogether different 
from that now prevailing. Apprenticeship does not 
meet the present needs of industry. As a scheme of 
education it is altogether inadequate. Conditions of 



68 LEARNING TO EARN 

society have changed greatly. Formerly, the master 
was responsible for the conduct of the apprentice, 
who lived with him, ate at his table and perhaps 
subsequently married his daughter. The master felt 
a personal responsibility for the character of the 
apprentice's training, the perfection of his skill. 

But the master no longer works with his men and 
exercises no personal supervision over his appren- 
tice, who is merely a hired boy and who must de- 
pend for his training upon what he may gain by 
observation. No one is present to direct the inquir- 
ing energies of his youthful mind. The boss or 
foreman is likely to be interested solely in volume 
of production and does not have time to look after 
the training of the young man seeking to learn a 
trade. Moreover, the system of apprenticeship has 
operated to reduce the available supply of skilled 
workmen of whatever degree, since entrance into a 
trade is almost as difficult as opportunities are 
meager. But trade union leaders were prone to de- 
fend the apprenticeship system as long as no satis- 
factory substitute was offered. 

Many large corporations maintain private trade 
schools where young men are received for study and 
training for a trade or for some department of the 
company's business. Their work has not been 
altogether satisfactory, but they have done some- 
thing to bridge the gap between inefficiency and 
skill. Their failure consists fundamentally in the 



INDUSTRY AND ITS NEEDS 69 

limitations of the scheme. Corporation trade 
schools educate only for the specific concerns which 
maintain them and not for industrial processes gen- 
erally. Young men trained in the narrow ways of 
a particular organization are apt to become wholly 
dependent upon that organization and to believe in 
the permanence and infallibility of its processes. 
Corporation trade schools can hardly develop the 
maximum of imagination and initiative — the two 
very important attributes of efficiency in industry. 
Naturally, the trade unions opposed the corpora- 
tion trade school. A special committee of the 
American Federation of Labor/ which made a 
report on industrial education at the Toronto meet- 
ing in 1909, opposed corporation trade schools on 
the grounds that, since their selection of pupils is 
private and not public, they are undemocratic and 
un-American; that they offer an opportunity to 
teach and foster anti-unionism with school-appren- 
ticed boys ; that they are wholly removed from the 
salutary supervision of the whole people and leave 
unsolved "the fundamental democratic problem of 
giving the boys of the country an equal opportunity 
and the citizens the power to criticize and reform 
their educational machinery" ; that they merely pre- 
tend to teach trades "in periods ranging from four 



* Proceedings of Twenty-ninth Annual Convention, A. F. L., 
p. 101. 



70 LEARNING TO EARN 

months to four years, and turn out graduates in 
times of industrial peace who are able to earn only 
fifty per cent, of the established wage in a given 
trade, and in times of industrial dispute are ex- 
ploited in the interests of unfair employers." 

But this committee also admitted the shortcom- 
ings of the apprentice system. "Formerly, the ap- 
prenticeship system offered the boy an opportunity 
to learn a trade and become a thoroughly trained 
mechanic," it found, **but of late years the scheme 
of specialization has supplanted the old apprentice- 
ship system, even to extreme specialization. . . . 
The one trouble in America to-day is that too many 
of our youths who have graduated from the gram- 
mar or high school are misfits industrially. If we 
are to secure industrial supremacy, or even maintain 
our present standards in the industrial world, we 
must in some way in our educational system acquire 
an equivalent to the old apprenticeship system." 

Thus the influence of trade unionism in the 
United States was marshaled on the side of indus- 
trial education, if provided for by public agency. 
This victory was attained, not without serious ob- 
stacles, by a few far-seeing men who possessed the 
confidence of organized labor. The latter element 
took the position that education for industry must 
be thorough, and to be thorough must be under- 
taken at public expense. It must be made a part of 
the public school system. On this basis alone was 



INDUSTRY AND ITS NEEDS 71 

organized labor willing to indorse industrial educa- 
tion as supplemental to the apprenticeship system. 

There are, in this country, several types of trade 
schools — those supported by public funds, those 
supported by private foundations and those sup- 
ported in various other ways. The International 
Typographical Union established a school of print- 
ing in 1908. A number of technical schools are 
maintained by public funds and an even larger num- 
ber by private endowment. Boston and Lowell have 
maintained evening industrial and trade schools for 
many years. Many such schools are maintained 
privately. Some practical shop courses are publicly 
maintained and others are privately endowed. There 
are trade schools for the colored race and numerous 
private correspondence schools offering instruction 
at long range for industry. One correspondence 
school claims that during a single year five thousand 
of its students received wage increases, averaging 
four hundred dollars for each student, due to train- 
ing received by correspondence. Finally, there are 
numerous intermediate industrial, preparatory trade 
or vocational schools, among which are those at 
New Bedford, Lawrence and Newton, Massa- 
chusetts, conducted in accordance with a Massachu- 
setts statute of 1906, and several in New York, 
conducted under a New York act of 1908. Many 
other states have made substantial progress toward 
establishing and maintaining industrial schools. 



72 LEARNING TO EARN 

Some means must be devised by which, for the 
wide-spread unrest now prevailing in industry, a 
spirit of cooperation and mutuality will be substi- 
tuted. Industrial managers are agreed that this 
unrest is wasteful; that, whatever its causes, unrest 
operates to reduce efficiency, not only in the produc- 
ing department, but in the departments of sales and 
distribution. Furthermore, industrial unrest tends 
to restrict the consumption of all classes. 

There is a fundamental cause of industrial unrest 
v/hich may be defined as the uneven division between 
capital and labor, employer and employee, of the 
products or fruits of industry. This fundamental 
difference is expressed in divers ways, chief of 
which are the desire of the workers for a voice in 
determining the conditions under which they are to 
vv^ork, revolt against arbitrary dealings with indi- 
vidual working men and the spread of industrial and 
trade unionism as a sequel to disastrous and wasting 
strikes. 

Infamous conditions patent to certain industries 
must be removed. These conditions not only are 
drawing the fire of the social crusader but they are 
wasting the energies of the industrial manager. 
They evidence a very serious breach of harmony be- 
tween industry and the workers and call for an im- 
mediate readjustment. It should be unnecessary for 
social workers to strive against child labor, un- 
sanitary factories, occupational diseases, long hours 



INDUSTRY AND ITS NEEDS IZ 

of service, the toll of human flesh taken by industrial 
accidents, irregular employment and wages which 
fall below a living minimum. Fundamentally, these 
conditions are social evils but they have a profound 
economic significance to industry and they ought to 
be eradicated. Industry largely must set its own 
house aright. "Herein must the patient minister 
unto himself." No one manufacturer can accom- 
plish the revolution but all, working together, can 
do so and they should act with earnestness, even 
despatch. 

It may be said that these conditions are irremedi- 
able; that no satisfactory panacea has been or will 
be devised. This contention is untrue. Of all the 
ills to which industry is heir, that of irregular un- 
employment undoubtedly is least susceptible to a 
thoroughgoing remedy. Yet unemployment is not 
at all hopeless. When men and women are more 
satisfactorily trained for industry, when industrial 
surveys have set forth the facts regarding the op- 
portunity for steady employment in each trade, there 
will no longer be the same blind choice — seasonal 
or intermittent trades and unemployment will be 
avoided by men who must consider the permanency 
of employment. 

It is characteristic of our Industrial order that 
we have over-emphasized the difference in impor- 
tance of various works. Although we have very 
much to say about the "dignity of honest labor," 



74 LEARNING TO EARN 

we do not accord to manual labor the social value 
to which it is entitled. That is because we are still 
thinking in terms of an individualistic philosophy 
and because we still act from that motif. Actually, 
we do not consider the value of manual labor as 
comparable with the mental efforts of the the- 
ologian, the lawyer or the merchant. We harp much 
about the want of efficiency of the man who keeps 
our streets clean and consider with hypocritical 
seriousness whether we are getting a full day's 
work for a dollar and a half, yet we concede to the 
corporation attorney, who is paid to inform his 
client of all the sharp practises by which the state 
may be frustrated in its endeavor to enforce useful 
laws, the right to have for his services fifty or per- 
haps one hundred thousand dollars a year. And 
this corporation attorney who receives his fee for 
knowing how to evade our laws and for so instruct- 
ing his client is the same man to whom perhaps the 
state has given a professional education — a voca- 
tional education — in our state universities, at great 
expense to all the people. 

We can not escape the consequences of our ideal- 
ism or lack of it. As long as the dollar is the de- 
termining standard of successful careers, the toiler 
who labors for meager wages will remain at the 
foot of the social ladder. He can not rise above it. 
Perhaps there is no panacea for this condition. Per- 
haps industry is not to be held accountable for the 



INDUSTRY AND ITS NEEDS 75 

cataclysmic peril of individualism run riot, but in- 
dustrial education will free the workers from the 
enticements of "blind alley" jobs, facilitate the 
realization of an economic democracy and in the end 
raze the bulwarks of class exploitation, an ideal 
from which industry certainly is not to emerge a 
loser. 

Cooperation between employer and employee, as 
the ultimate goal of industry, can not be attained 
by temporizing devices conceived by ultra-enthusi- 
astic philanthropists or fomented by irresponsible 
agitators. Cooperation is a scientific fact and its 
approach likewise is scientific. It must be realized 
by and through the efforts of the student. Indus- 
trial education, therefore, must include the prob- 
lems of cooperation as one of its chief concerns. 

Industry needs to find some form of relief from 
the exactions of monotonous employment. There 
are in this country upward of twenty million people 
over ten years of age — men, women and children — 
engaged in unskilled or partially-skilled occupations. 
The number doing this unskilled or highly special- 
ized work remains fairly constant, and increases 
in about the same ratio as the increase in popula- 
tion. The service is menial, monotonous, automatic. 
Little training is required for such work and not 
more than a few months' experience. The school 
seems totally unable to contribute anything to the 
betterment of such workers as long as they remain 



7(i LEARNING TO EARN 

in these unskilled or partially-skilled occupations. 
Tacitly, we recognize in this country the necessity 
for the industrial worker to proceed out of hand 
toil, by promotion, to positions as foremen, man- 
ager, director and owner, if he is to enjoy the 
greater social luxuries. He can obtain few luxuries 
as long as he remains an industrial worker because 
custom has fixed a limit to what he may receive. 
We are beset, therefore, with the alternative either 
of considering monotonous employment in special- 
ized industries or the hand trades as the beginning 
of a man's promotion to a managing position where 
he may earn enough to support himself and family 
in comfort and save against old age and diminished 
earning capacity, or, of admitting that this class 
of labor is underpaid. 

If the man who yesterday performed the auto- 
matic tasks of industry to-day has been raised to 
the position of foreman or superintendent or sales 
manager, some one takes his place. That one man 
has been promoted does not reduce the number of 
men required for the commoner kind of labor, which 
the promoted man performed a little while ago. 

Only one out of ten boys entering the textile mill, 
it is said, can expect to rise out of the wearisome 
niche of automatic effort into more highly skilled 
work and, as for girls, the percentage is much 
smaller. Only one in two hundred girls employed 
in the simple automatic processes of the textile miU 



r 



INDUSTRY AND ITS NEEDS 77 

may expect a permanent and lucrative position, of- 
fering constant opportunity for individual effort at 
greater efficiency and promxotion, higher wages and 
better working conditions. 

Of course, boys and girls must be educated av/ay 
from these "blind alley" occupations. Girls are em- 
ployed on an average of seven years in these trades, 
after which they marry or leave for other causes. 
But boys must continue to be wage-earners all their 
lives, and the pressure of their permanent welfare 
makes the problem more acute. Charles A. Prosser 
suggests the machine shops, repair shops, electrical 
shops, wheelwrighting and power shops which clus- 
ter about the textile center as desirable openings for 
boys fitted for advancement and as well situated for 
their part-time training while they are working 
actively in the textile industry. 

Mining practically is devoid of opportunities for 
promotion. It offers little inspiration for more than 
average effort and scarcely any chance for individ- 
ual skill. Yet there are many hand trades necessary 
to mining operations and open to young men work- 
ing in a mine through which they may find, if they 
choose, a "place in the sun." 

Girls who perform monotonous tasks may take 
up household science as a wholesome diversion and 
in it may find many opportunities to increase their 
earnings or prepare for the business of home-mak- 
ing, which eventually is their chief interest. 



7S 



LEARNING TO EARN 



Large-scale production, with its finely-spun divi- 
sion of labor, depending upon specialized machines 
run at high speed, where increased profits are closely 
related to greater mental and physical fatigue of 
the workers, is a problem which industry must 
attack for its own sake. Monotonous employment 
tends to restrict the activity of motor centers to a 
few grooves and in that much, during leisure hours, 
calls for a variety of experiences that may become 
more and more physically and morally harmful. 
Shorter hours will tend to relieve the strain, but 
some means ought to be provided by which the 
worker will find a wholesome avenue of expression 
in his leisure hours. 

Industry should take the initiative and, in a large 
measure, direct the course which public agencies are 
to take in providing healthful and diverting systems 
of recreation for men and women, boys and girls, 
engaged in monotonous employments. Here is an 
opportunity for trained social workers, but every 
agency, public and private, must cooperate to re- 
lieve the tension of toil where "efficiency" concerns 
itself merely with speeding up the physical efforts 
of the worker. 

Perhaps industrial education will fail to contrib- 
ute materially to the relief of the workers from 
automatic industry. Perhaps automatic industry is 
not susceptible to thoroughgoing relief. Yet the 
problem is certain to be attacked as a consequence 



INDUSTRY AND ITS NEEDS 79 

of the somewhat universal interest in industrial edu- 
cation, and may we not expect that a scientific con- 
sideration of its troublesome features will yield a 
satisfactory return for the effort? 

An almost crucial need of industry is the training 
for accident prevention. Employers should be made 
to see that accidents are wasteful; that they affect 
the credit side of the ledger ; that loss of life, perma- 
nent or even temporary illness or injury of em- 
ployees cost dollars, not only in the pay-roll, but in 
the net outlay for production. 

Frederick L. Hoffman* estimated the number of 
fatal accidents in industry in 1906 at 32,004, while 
Doctor Josiah Strong, in his Safety and Securiff of 
American Life and Lab or, ^ asserts that "our peace- 
ful vocations cost more lives every two days than 
all we lost in battle during our war with Spain." 

Doctor Tolman gives even more startling figures 
in his volume. Safety, issued in 1913. "It is the 
general opinion of the engineering profession," he 
says,^ "that one-half of the accidents in the United 
States are preventable and that a conservative esti- 
mate of the annual number of accidents which result 
fatally or in partial or total incapacity on the part 
of the worker may be placed at 500,000. Reckon- 
ing the earning capacity of the average worker at 



* Bliss, Encyclopedia of Social Reform, p. 4. 

" Quoted in Bliss, Encyclopedia of Social Reform, p. 6. 

' Ibid., p. 2. 



80 LEARNING TO EARN 

$500 per annum, we have to consider a social and 
economic loss of $250,000,000 a year. And these 
figures, of course, take no account of the many high- 
salaried men and industrialists killed every year in 
mining, building, transportation and other fields of 
industry. 

"Every year," he continues,^ "we spend enormous 
sums 'conserving the national resources.' We are 
taking care of our trees, we are taking care of our 
game, we are taking care of our fish, but also every 
year we lose many times over what we conserve in 
this way simply because an army of wage-earners 
are allowed to become a charge on charity for no 
other reason than that we do not seem to consider 
it worth while to take care of the very foundation of 
the nation — ^the workingman and his family. . . . 
In this last and most vital question of all — ^the 
wasted lives of our people — we have been making 
ourselves ridiculous in the eyes of world powers." 

As a contrast with the reckless extravagance that 
prevails in this country, Tolman cites^ the statement 
of Doctor Zacher, director of the German Imperial 
Bureau of Statistics : 

"One billion marks in wage-earning efficiency an- 
nually we conserve for Germany through our sana- 
toria, museums of safety, convalescent homes and 
other forms of social insurance, by which we safe- 

^ Bliss, Encyclopedia of Social Reform, p. 4. 
^ Ibid., p. 4. 



INDUSTRY AND ITS NEEDS 81 

guard the lives and limbs of our workmen and pre- 
vent the causes and effects of diseases which would 
lessen their economic efficiency." 

"One of the most important phases of our future 
development," says Doctor Tolman,^ "is the work 
of creating an inexpensive efficient handrail at the 
top of our industrial precipice to take the place of 
the unreliable and expensive ambulance at the bot- 
tom." 

It is not sufficient either to install every available 
device for the safety of industry or to say simply 
that workmen must be careful. It will hardly suffice 
to do both. Workmen need to be trained oveik an 
extended period to be cautious. Industrial educa- 
tion offers an adequate means of developing those 
reflex centers which, after all, are the surest personal 
safeguards and guarantees against industrial peril, 
while the mind is plastic. 

Surely there can be no question that accident pre- 
vention should be undertaken with systematic pre- 
cision when the United States Steel Corporation in 
seven years has been able to reduce industrial acci- 
dents forty-six per cent, and save nine thousand em- 
ployees from serious injury or death as a result of 
its "safety first" movement and when many large 
concerns have been able to reduce accidents from 
thirty to eighty-five per cent, without any loss of 

•/&tU, p. 8. 



82 LEARNING TO EARN 

production. Industrial education should emphasize 
the economy of industrial safety. 

Industry, it has been said, is in need of an educa- 
tional system that will develop imagination, initia- 
tive, independence and self-reliance among the men 
who are to pursue its ramifications. As now con- 
stituted, our educational system is wholly unequal 
to the program fixed for it. It is quite lacking in 
impetus for individual expression. It contributes 
little to promote our industrial growth because it 
does not concern itself specifically with industrial 
problems. 

Industrial education aims to grasp the intricate 
and inexplicable phases of secondary production and 
to give to each, in turn, the careful attention of an 
army of trained workers. Production, it insists, 
must be complete and final. Skill of the highest 
order should attach to every commodity offered for 
sale. Production seeks the minimum cost, and this 
necessitates, first, that employer and employee be 
on friendly terms, and, second, that there be no 
sweating and no unnecessary monotony in industrial 
operation. 

Our present system neglects almost altogether the 
teaching of those things which have an economic 
object. Industry is no exception. Even our indus- 
trial history, which might well be taught under the 
present scheme of education, is slighted or wholly 
omitted. The information of the average boy out 



INDUSTRY AND ITS NEEDS 83 

of high school concerning our industrial develop- 
ment is confined almost altogether to vague recollec- 
tions of who invented the steamboat, the cotton-gin, 
the electric telephone and telegraph. There it ends. 
He knows almost nothing about the history of 
machine production, of the labor movement, about 
science as applied to industrial development, about 
trade and transportation, selling and marketing. 

Lawyers, soldiers, politicians and authors occupy 
the center of the stage in the schoolroom panorama 
of American history. Boys and girls naturally seek 
to imitate the figures constantty held before their 
immature minds. Yet what does it profit the young 
man or young woman who must be self-suppofting 
at sixteen or eighteen years of age to emulate such 
as these ? Would it not be far better for the young 
man who must go to work very early in life that the 
industrial genius of Robert Owen, James Parton, 
Cyrus McCormick or Edison were emphasized 
somewhat to the exclusion of political and military 
heroes? Would it not be far better for industry if 
such were the case? 

"Both the educational methods and the economic 
demand have been crystallized," says Howell 
Cheney,^*^ "and a solution of the problem satisfac- 
tory to all parties depends upon keeping a proper 
balance between a broad training for life and imme- 



^° The School and the Shop from an Employer's Point of 
View, p. 4, by Howell Cheney of Cheney Brothers, South 
Manchester, Conn. 



84 LEARNING TO EARN 



I 



diate efBciency, i. e., between the social and educa- 
tional necessities and the cultivation of a mere 
dexterity which will produce the greatest number of 
an article at a minimum price." 

But American employers, before they should re- 
ceive the aid of public education for the thorough 
training of young men and women for industry 
must, as Howell Cheney^ ^ says, "demonstrate, first, 
the existence of educational opportunities in our 
factories and the reality of their influence, and then 
to indicate how they may be directed toward the 
promotion of higher intelligence, as their important 
aim. Their economic value is of secondary impor- 
tance and ought to be considered only in so far as it 
contributed toward the main purpose." 

Cheney contends that, after eliminating industries 
which require a high grade of skill developed 
through hard work and which are plainly educa- 
tional, there are many others which offer proper 
opportunities for industrial training for boys as a 
legitimate part of their education. Among these he 
names the metal and machine trades, from making 
watches to building locomotives ; the building trades 
and allied vocations; the craft of the bookbinder, 
printer, decorator, designer, engraver or draftsman; 
the higher processes of shoe and textile manufactur- 
ing; electrical working, agriculture, dairy farming, 
stock raising and the commercial pursuits. And for 

"Howell Cheney, The School and The Shop, 



INDUSTRY AND ITS NEEDS 85 

girls, Cheney names typewriting and stenography, 
millinery and dressmaking, decorating, designing 
and printing and certain machine operations. 

But these occupations are only typical. Every 
one needs to be subjected to rigid examination and 
investigation before it is dignified by such education 
and training as the public schools may offer. The 
schools must institute and carry forward to comple- 
tion the proposed survey of industry. So far little 
has been done. "Our schools," says President Eg- 
gleston, of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute, "are 
the only manufacturing plants in the world that 
make practically no survey of their communities 
before the erection of plants." 

Nearly ten thousand occupations are listed in the 
United States census reports, and the vast work 
necessary for an adequate survey of industry is 
apparent. Many occupations which are not now ac- 
ceptable, as offering a wholesome minimum of edu- 
cational opportunity, are nevertheless susceptible to 
changes which will make them acceptable. Before 
any occupation is made a part of the industrial edu- 
cational curriculum, it must be lifted to a plane where 
mental development is assured as the normal result 
of pursuing its processes. There must be no "blind 
alleys" into which young men and women are to be 
lured by the peculiar enticements that attach to a 
vocation because training for it may be had in pub- 
lic schools. 



86 LEARNING TO £aRN 

As expressed by Charles H. Winslow/%n indus-A 
trial survey should determine four things : First, 
the exact nature of the employment in detail, includ- 
ing the character of work performed; second, the 
extent to which training for the occupation is given 
in the shop, that school instruction may supplement 
and not duplicate practical apprenticeship ; ^third, a 
statement of the common deficiencies and needs of 
the worker, and, fourth, the nature of instruction, 
expected of the public schools J 

Roughly speaking, the determination of these 
things would constitute a fairly satisfactory survey 
of industry. In the industrial survey of Richmond 
detailed schedules of fifty inquiries were prepared, 
one for the industrial managers and one for the 
workmen. In the printing, building and metal 
trades, for instance, more than five hundred indi- 
vidual schedules were taken, each representing a 
personal conference with workmen. One hundred 
and fifty individual schedules were taken among the 
workmen in the tobacco industry and three or four 
hundred in the department stores. Analyses for 
each of fifty-six occupations in the printing, build- 
ing and metal trades were prepared. 

Necessarily, a survey must be a permanent insti- 
tution in order to carry investigations into industries 
not covered by the initial survey; to collect and 



"Address on Richmond Survey. 



INDUSTRY AND ITS NEEDS 87 

compile data regarding new processes and new 
occupations in industries already covered; to collect 
data concerning the development of new industries 
in a community, and to maintain intimate relation- 
ship between shop and school. For the success of 
industrial education the last is most important. Not 
only should the relationship between shop and school 
be permanent, but it likewise should be of the most 
intimate and friendly sort. For this purpose, ex- 
perts, teachers and industrial managers should be 
joined together permanently to effect and maintain 
the cooperation and coordination of shop and 
school. The coordination should be characterized 
by daily contact between shop and school through 
some professional intermediary agent that is able to 
measure and report progress. No other means can 
get equally efficient results, and if, as Mr. Winslow 
says, "industrial education should not be content to 
follow, it should direct industrial development;" no 
less direct means of coordination will insure the 
fulfillment of the aims of industrial education. 

Industry demands the cooperation of the manu- 
facturer, the workmen and the teacher to deter- 
mine the boundaries of industrial education and 
guide its course aright. Training for industry is 
going to yield readily to a measuring stick, and that 
measuring stick is shop efficiency. But if industrial 
education arouses the thought centers and creates 



88 LEARNING TO EARN 

new grooves and paths in the brains of working 
men, efficiency in shop and factory, under the proper 
guidance of skilled managers and executives, will 
take care of itself. Industry will thus enter a new 
era of reformation and expansion. 



CHAPTER V 

AGRICULTURE AND ITS EDUCATIONAL NEEDS 

Food production has failed to keep pace with the increase in 
population — Our farm yields are far below those of European 
countries — Farm is unattractive as a business opportunity — 
Distribution facilities are inadequate — Greater production in 
the aggregate means lower prices — Cooperative marketing is 
a scientific undertaking and a problem for trained minds — 
Why rural education is uninteresting — Agricultural colleges 
and practical farming — Keeping the boy on the farm — The 
problems of tenantry, transient laborers and mature workers 
— Agricultural credit — Farm accounting — Diversified farming 
— Expenditures for roads — Conservation in agriculture — Vi- 
sion and inspiration count — Careful training essential 

The farm is the granary for the office, the store 
and the shop. It is the farm which must feed and 
clothe that section of the population which produces 
no food and no raw material for clothing. Prices 
of food and clothing have experienced an upward 
trend for several years and are becoming next to 
prohibitive for great sections of the population. The 
conclusion is obvious that production must be in- 
creased if the non-producers of food are to be fed. 
It is very generally agreed that there is not enough 
food to "go around" ; that a shortage of supply has 
enhanced prices for all classes. 

It is not difficult to understand why the volume 
of farm production has become a serious social 

89 



90 LEARNING TO EARN 

problem in the United States. The urban popula- 
tion has been gaining on the rural population for 
thirty years. The active producers have been leav- 
ing the farm for the city. While the urban popula- 
tion increased from 29.5 per cent, of the whole in 
1880 to 46.3 per cent, in 1910, the rural population 
decreased from 70.5 to 53.7. The effect of this 
shifting of population upon production is more 
clearly evidenced from the decrease in rural popula- 
tion in the great agricultural states of the Middle 
West between 1880 and 1910. The table herewith 
presented shows the percentage of rural population 
for two periods in twelve states : 



Table Showing the Rural Population by Percentages for 
Twelve States at Two Periods 



State 


1880 


1910 


State 


1880 


1910 


Indiana 


... 80.5 


57.6 


Iowa 


. 84.8 


69.4 


Ohio 


... 67.8 


44.1 


Missouri 


. 74.8 


57.5 


Illinois 


... 69.0 


38.3 


North Dakota. 


. 92.7 


89.0 


Michigan . . . 


... 75.2 


52.8 


South Dakota.. 


. 92.7 


86.9 


Wisconsin . . 


... 76.1 


57.0 


Nebraska 


. 86.6 


73.9 


Minnesota .. 


... 81.1 


59.0 


Kansas 


. 89.5 


70.8 



The decrease in the number of persons engaged in 
agriculture — ^the number of food-producers — is 
striking. Since 1880 there has been a steady decline 
from 44.4 per cent, to 32.9 in 1910. The percentage 
of professional people has shown a slight gain and 
the percentage of persons in domestic and personal 
service a considerable falling off — 5.2 per cent. — in 
the last decade. On the contrary, the percentage of 



AGRICULTURE AND ITS NEEDS 91 

persons engaged in mechanical and manufacturing 
pursuits, who are non-producers of the raw material 
for food, increased from 21.8 in 1880 to 28.3 in 
1910. 

More striking still is the deduction from these 
figures that, whereas in 1880 there was 44.4 per 
cent, of the population to feed a remainder of 55.6, 
in 1910 there was only 32.9 per cent, of the working 
population to feed a remainder of 67.1 per cent. 

Our production per acre is still far behind that of 
the great European agricultural countries where the 
pressure of population has become serious. We 
produced 14.1 bushels of wheat per acre in the ten- 
year period, 1900-09, while Germany produced 28.9 
bushels, France 20.5 and the United Kingdom 33. 
We produced 29.3 bushels of oats, while Germany 
raised 50.7 and the United Kingdom 44.3 ; 92 bush- 
els of potatoes, while Germany produced 200, Aus- 
tria 151.1, France 133.8 and the United King- 
dom 193.8.=^ 



^The following table shows the ten-year yield of leading 
crops in seven countries : 

Wheat Oats Barley Rye Potatoes 

Country 60 lbs. 32 lbs. 48 lbs. 56 lbs. 60 lbs. 

United States 14.1 29.3 25.8 16.0 92.0 

European Russia 9.7 20.0 14.3 11.5 99.0 

Germany 28.9 50.7 35.3 25.6 200.0 

Austria 18.0 29.8 26.3 19.0 151.1 

Hungary 17.5 30.7 23.4 17.6 118.7 

France 20.5b 2\.6b 23.6b 17.1 & 113.8& 

United Kingdom 33.1 & 44.3 b 35.0 b 27.5 b 193.8 b 

b — Winchester bushels. 



92 LEARNING JO EARN 

By improving the seed and by proper methods of 
farming, the yield of wheat and corn could be 
doubled in this country and the yield of oats and 
barley increased to fifty bushels. Agriculture, dur- 
ing the last three decades, has very little for which 
to congratulate itself if crop yields only are con- 
sidered. 

That the farm has not been attractive as a busi- 
ness opportunity, accounts partially for the move- 
ment from country to city. The movement is 
world-wide. In 1897, says Mulhall, when forty per 
cent, of the world's population was engaged in agri- 
culture and thirty-one per cent, of the world's capital 
was employed in this industry, its share of the 
world's profits was only twenty per cent. The sig- 
nificance of this disparity is more marked in the 
United States from the fact that land values in this 
country and cost of farm equipment have increased 
enormously in the last decade. 

The value of farm property in the United States 
doubled between 1900 and 1910, and more than 
three- fourths of the increased value was for land. 
While the man who owned a farm in 1910 could sell 
it practically for twice what he would have received 
in 1900, if he chose to keep the farm the increased 
value was reflected only in such advances as attached 
to prices of farm products. It is growing increas- 
ingly difficult for the young man starting out in life 



AGRICULTURE AND ITS NEEDS 93 

with no money to obtain a farm of his own because 
of the increased initial cost of the land. 

Farmers can hardly be expected to wax enthusi- 
astic over increased production if this means merely 
that they shall receive a proportionately smaller unit 
price for a greater number of bushels; or, a like 
number of coins for a greater number of pounds. 
After all, the farmer's economic interest is centered 
in increased profits, whether production recedes, re- 
miains constant or is enhanced. If only the eco- 
nomic interest of the so-called non-producers — the 
consumers of food and clothing — were to be con- 
sidered, it could be said truly that greater produc- 
tion would solve the whole problem of the high cost 
of living. Increased production would amount to a 
greater supply, and under normal conditions, at 
least, this factor would tend to reduce prices to a 
proper level. 

Unfortunately, the farmer's economic interest in 
increased profits can not be ignored. Involved in 
this interest, patent to the farmer's prosperity, is the 
problem of distribution, which, fortunately, is not 
altogether hopeless. The problem of distribution is 
no other than that of markets. So that, if produc- 
tion is increased, improved market facilities to safe- 
guard the farmer's economic interest *in greater 
profits must eliminate to some extent the present 
waste in distribution. Present and future efforts to 



94 LEARNING TO EARN 

avoid this waste must compensate the farmer for 
producing larger crops, which, otherwise, would 
mean nothing to him. 

The two most important economic problems of 
agriculture, from the point of view of those engaged 
in the industry, therefore, are greater production 
and improved market facilities. 

Improved market facilities must go hand in hand 
with increased production if the economic problems 
of the farm are to be solved. The country is quite 
familiar with "corners" and monopolies of food 
products ; familiar with the waste from our indirect 
system of dealing between producer and consumer, 
and from total loss of most of the surplus raised on 
the average farm, because no scheme is available to 
expedite barter and sale directly between producer 
in the country and consumer in the city; familiar 
with the loss from glutted markets, where the pro- 
ducer must take what the commission man is willing 
to pay. 

The packers have control of the meat supply, 
gamblers in futures get control of the available sup- 
ply of wheat, brokers and cold-storage men combine 
to limit the free trading in fruits, eggs and dairy 
products, while prices soar beyond all reason. Veg- 
etables in large quantities go to waste on the farm 
because there is no means by which the individual 
farmer can dispose of his small surplus. The farmer 
has come to be a disinterested spectator in make- 



AGRICULTURE AND ITS NEEDS 95 

believe rate wars between shipper and carrier. The 
whole system of marketing is inefficient, extrava- 
gant and ruinous. The farmer suffers most of all 
from the havoc wrought by this inefficiency and 
waste. 

"Year after year," says John Graham Brooks,^ 
"southern California tried to market her fruits as 
if the process were an all-around free fight. From 
the grower to the eater there was no interest which 
did not suffer. The separate grower found himself 
with less and less influence over the railroad, over 
prices and over far-off commission men." 

But the fruit growers found a remedy for* this 
condition in cooperative organization, and the 
power formerly used by the middleman has been 
appropriated directly by the growers. "What or- 
ganization has done for large business," says 
Brooks, "it here does for the smaller. Grading, 
packing, inspection, marketing are all taken into 
their own group control. ... In the central 
exchange and the forty independent co-operative 
associations above eighty per cent, of the citrus fruit 
is thus handled. Three out of four of California's 
twelve thousand growers are in co-operative team- 
work." 

Apple growing is a cooperative enterprise in the 
Northwest. Cooperation has effected a revolution 



The New Republic. 



96 LEARNING TO EARN 

in dairying. There are more than fifteen hundred 
mutual insurance companies, insuring farmers 
against losses from fire, hail and cyclones, and all 
but a fraction of one per cent, of these companies 
have been successful. Five of the thirteen million 
acres of irrigated land, it is said, have been irrigated 
by cooperative effort. There are several thousand 
farmers' elevators in the country that not only mar- 
ket the members' grain, but purchase cooperatively 
flour, coal, lumber, machinery and general mer- 
chandise. 

The cooperative movement has spread rapidly in 
the last few years and presents an effective means of 
checking the oppression of railroads, middlemen and 
other monopolists. 

Agricultural education is proposed as a system of 
training by which farm production may be in- 
creased. It is expected to reveal its magic in making 
land that costs twice as much as formerly produce 
at least twice as much. To this extent it is expected 
to make the farm attractive as a business opportu- 
nity and check the exodus from country to city, 
which, incidentally, has more than economic impor- 
tance. Moreover, if agricultural education accom- 
plishes a reasonable measure of its program, it will 
develop a happy and contented country life, one 
which for intelligence and vision will surpass even 
the competitive spirit of life in the great industrial 
and commercial metropolis. In any event, country 



AGRICULTURE AND ITS NEEDS 97 

life will avoid the most glaring vices of the city. 
By emphasizing the comparative advantages of life 
in the open, socially and financially, agricultural edu- 
cation should establish a countryside that is attrac- 
tive to those active-minded young men now hasten- 
ing, at the outset of their careers, to the office in the 
city. Since the farmer's markets are intimately 
dependent upon cooperative endeavor, agricultural 
education is expected to emphasize the importance 
of cooperation in buying and selling. Young men 
must be trained in the scientific phases of cooper- 
ative endeavor, and agricultural education can and 
should give this training. Cooperation among»pro- 
ducers is quite as necessary to the consumers as to 
primary producers. 

Were it not well settled that something is wrong 
with rural education, we should have nothing new 
to-day with which to deal. But the twin problems 
of an imminent shortage of food supply and de- 
creasing profits from the business of farming have 
precipitated what, it seems certain, will amount to a 
revolution in rural education. Of course, there has 
been a wide-spread conviction that the rural schools 
somehow have not fulfilled the needs of the boys 
and girls who come to them. Discerning parents 
have been unable to establish any close relationship 
between what their sons and daughters learned at 
school and what they ought to know to be success- 
ful farmers and farmers' wives. 



98 LEARNING TO EARN 

Professional educators have sought to correlate 
teaching with real life as a counter-irritant to this 
wide-spread feeling. It was admitted that peda- 
gogical instruction lacked concreteness, failed to 
hold the child's interest, and teachers therefore were 
urged to use the concrete material available in the 
school community. Not until recently was the rela- 
tionship between the failure of public school instruc- 
tion and the development of the vocational instincts 
in children — a development which vocational educa- 
tion in its many phases is to satisfy — recognized. 

Rural education is not adapted to the immediate 
and intimate interests of the children. Agricultural 
education should make it so. 

For more than a half century the agricultural 
colleges and, for a lesser period, the United States 
Department of Agriculture have labored with the 
declared purpose of awakening a scientific interest 
in the business of farming. The agricultural college 
and the extension work of the United States De- 
partment of Agriculture have pointed the way to 
better methods and to a scientific point of attack. 
This cooperative endeavor may be regarded as the 
forerunner of what we know to-day as the nation- 
wide scheme of agricultural education — a scheme 
that will thoroughly localize instruction. 

Agricultural education purposes to transform the 
rural schools so that they will accomplish the ends 
which their surroundings invite them to seek. Agri- 



AGRICULTURE AND ITS NEEDS 99 

cultural colleges have made no little progress in 
demonstrating that intellectual vision and mental 
activity are quite as necessary to successful farming 
as physical energy, but the impetus for the present 
movement did not come from the land-grant insti- 
tutions. 

The agricultural college has failed largely to edu- 
cate practical farmers. Instead of educating young 
men for the farm, the agricultural college, as well as 
the public schools, actually has educated the young 
man away from the farm. Senator Page has made 
the statement that the agricultural college of Ver- 
mont in thirty years furnished just eight practical 
farmers. In twenty years the Montana Agricul- 
tural College furnished two. These examples are 
hardly typical, but the tendency of the agricultural 
college has been to make its students agricultural sci- 
entists rather than practical and successful farmers. 

More boys should remain on the farm and their 
education for the farm, therefore, should be ob- 
tained largely in the home community if there is to 
be any material profit from agricultural education, 
if education is to make the farm attractive. It is 
wrong altogether to send the boy away to the city 
for an agricultural education at a time when his 
mind is most susceptible to the influences which sur- 
round him. The new movement for agricultural 
education purposes to establish the agricultural 
school at the very threshold of the farm, where it 



100 LEARNING TO EARN 

will be available to the country boy without leaving 
the farm at all. If the nation-wide scheme of agri- 
cultural education given in the public schools of each 
township will not succeed in keeping the boy on the 
farm, then nothing will succeed. 

The per cent, of tenancy in the United States in- 
creased from 25.5 in 1880 to 37 in 1910; also, the 
number of tenant farmers increased 130 per cent, 
during the thirty-year period, while the number of 
owned farms increased only 34 per cent. The 
growth of tenancy is not to be excused or condoned. 
It is not a healthful sign of rural life and must be 
checked if the American farmer is to realize the 
ideals of an industrial democracy; if he is to con- 
tribute his share toward what goes to make up an 
efficient citizenship. 

There are in the United States upward of three 
million transient farm laborers whose position in 
rural life is precarious, to say the least, and there 
are perhaps an additional million of young men who 
are just starting life on the farm. All of these are 
practically beyond the reach of agricultural educa- 
tion in the public schools, except the few who may 
be reached through continuation classes, extension 
courses, civic societies and local farmers' organiza- 
tions. 

Very little may be accomplished among the six 
and one-half million farmers living on their own or 
rented land, because their ways, their habits of do- 



AGRICULTURE AND ITS NEEDS 101 

ing things or of failing to do them are reasonably 
well fixed. They do not respond to contact with 
new ideas. They are not susceptible to new meth- 
ods. In a certain Indiana village where a county 
agricultural agent had organized a township associa- 
tion of farmers, the young men only could be in- 
duced to attend the meetings. In one instance, 
twenty-two out of twenty-five present were under 
the age of twenty-five. Yet the subject under dis- 
cussion was "smut in wheat," which was responsible 
for heavy damage to the crop just harvested. Agri- 
cultural extension courses and short courses given 
each winter at the agricultural colleges may do 
something toward reaching matured men who have 
not lost interest in new methods, but they are wholly 
inadequate, even pedagogically wrong, as applied to 
boys in the public schools whose minds are fired with 
curiosity not only of knowing how the soil is to be 
prepared to raise better crops, but of knowing why 
it should be prepared in a particular way. 

The propaganda of agricultural education is de- 
signed primarily for the million boys living on the 
farm who have not yet left the public schools and 
the millions to follow them who will receive the dis- 
closures of scientific experimentation and investiga- 
tion with youthful enthusiasm and adolescent faith. 

Agricultural education is not to be merely a train- 
ing for the successful production of corn, wheat, 
cherries and sleek cattle. The agricultural extension 



102 LEARNING TO EARN 

courses and the farmers' short courses are doing 
that because, probably, it is the best that may be 
done with mature men who have not the time and 
may lack the inclination to delve deeply into under- 
lying principles; who may be past the age of learn- 
ing why given causes produce certain effects. Per- 
haps fiYQ, million farmers attend institutes, receive 
instruction from itinerant specialists and other 
forms of institute activity each year. This is all 
very well, but the boy in the public schools who is 
being educated for the farm must know more than 
railroad specials and institutes are able to give, 
and the schools must be capable of developing these 
underlying principles. He must know enough about 
the chemistry of soils to understand why frequent 
cultivation is necessary and why certain plant food 
is required for given crops. This is the scientific or 
cultural phase of education for the farm, and the 
boy will do well to get this cultural foundation in 
the public schools. 

Agricultural credit is an important means by 
which production may be increased. The farmer's 
money is not available at a time when it is most 
needed. The farmer should have facilities for 
financing his crop at the beginning of the season, 
and, for low rates, he should be able to obtain rea- 
sonable amounts of money for drainage, for feeding 
stock, fencing and equipment. Under present con- 
ditions he must pay fabulous rates and, for these 



AGRICULTURE AND ITS NEEDS 103 

purposes it is difficult to obtain at all, unless he hap- 
pens to have credit apart from the crop just about 
to be produced. 

Whatever surplus the farmer has left in the fall 
when the crops are harvested is deposited in the 
country banks, from which it finds its way to the 
city vaults to be used in financing industrial enter- 
prise at low rates and where the element of security 
is vastly less than that of farm investment. This 
was the finding of President Roosevelt's Country 
Life Commission after a thorough investigation of 
banking conditions. A report of the controller of 
the currency on the condition of national ban^s for 
one period in 1914 showed that out of $415,399,- 
620.64 on deposit in the national banks of Indiana, 
Minnesota, Iowa, North Dakota and South Dakota 
$198,570,605.39 was in time deposits and not sub- 
ject to check. A good part of this money goes to 
reserve cities to be loaned out at two or three per 
cent. The farmer should be able to maintain inti- 
mate business relationship with the banker, and he 
ought to have banking facilities equal or superior to 
the manager of industrial enterprise. 

Legislatures and congresses for a generation have 
been seeking an equitable system of agricultural 
credit — cheap interest rates for the farmer, to which 
he is entitled by virtue of the stability and security 
of his investment. Yet the sum total of investiga- 
tion, discussion and debate has not even determined 



104 LEARNING TO EARN 

whether it is expedient for the federal government 
or the states separately to undertake the administra- 
tion of a credit system. If a system is ever put into 
operation, it must be effected through the influence 
of the farmers themselves, and it remains perhaps 
for the boys who are to be educated in agricultural 
schools to devise a satisfactory scheme and give it 
the sanction of law. 

Accurate bookkeeping should determine what are 
the profits and losses of the farm, and annual bal- 
ances should serve as guides for the succeeding year. 
Few farmers are able to tell at the end of the year 
how much money they have made and many are 
unable to tell whether their business is being run at 
a gain or loss. No large business could survive the 
want of trial balances and no business, large or 
small, could endure if it were run as most men man- 
age the financial department of the farm. Barn 
doors and tool chests are quite inadequate for the 
bookkeeping of the farm. Yet perhaps three- 
fourths of the farmers make their only entries in 
these places. Farmers ought to know how to segre- 
gate accounts for every department of production, 
and separate accountings must show the losses of 
raising rye as well as the profits of feeding cattle 
for beef. 

Some farmers no doubt would find, if their books 
were balanced at the end of the year, that they could 
have made more money by working for a dollar a 



AGRICULTURE AND ITS NEEDS 105 

day for some one else. Yet it would take a careful 
balance to convince them of their losses. Out of the 
agricultural education movement may be devised a 
simple system of bookkeeping for the farm, with 
tables of depreciations on farm equipment that can 
be readily understood. Not until bookkeeping is 
accurate and scientific can the farmer tell whether 
he is going backward or forward. Farmers make 
little effort to-day to *'keep books," because they do 
not know how to proceed. 

Not only ought agricultural education to point the 
way toward the successful production of corn, 
wheat, oats, rye, potatoes, clover, alfalfa, tobacco, 
cotton, rice and sugar-cane, but it ought to point the 
way toward the most profitable selection of crops 
for particular soils and climates. Diversified farm- 
ing will have much to do with the volume of future 
profits. As land values increase, farmers are com- 
pelled to acquire the capacity of adjusting them- 
selves to changed values, else they will find them- 
selves persisting in the raising of crops that can no 
longer be sold at a profit. It is very doubtful 
whether the farmers of Illinois, Indiana and Ohio 
can longer raise wheat in competition with the supe- 
rior quality grown on the cheaper lands of the 
Northwest and Canada. Likewise, there is some 
reason to believe that oats may fall in the category 
of decreasingly profitable crops in the prairie states. 

Farmers in the three states attached to the prin- 



106 LEARNING TO EARN 

ciple of crop rotation will not give up easily the prac- 
tise of a passing generation to follow corn with 
wheat and wheat with red clover, yet when the ar- 
rangement fails to show a reasonable profit, substi- 
tutes must be found. Not that the underlying prin- 
ciple of crop rotation is ever wrong or must be 
abandoned, but simply that farmers may find it 
necessary to vary the crops which constitute the 
rotation. For this reason every farm must be an 
experimental station as well as the primary source 
of food products and the raw material for clothing. 
Agricultural education in the public schools ought 
to make the boy an experimenter for truth. His in- 
vestigations should proceed with unabated zeal when 
his school days proper are finished and his farm 
ever continue to be his laboratory. It is impossible 
to over-emphasize this fact : Education for the farm 
is a continuing process. There is not to be any 
quitting place, nor any point at which an end is 
reached. Farmers, perhaps, will need no extra in- 
ducement to maintain intimate relationship with the 
schools after regular attendance ceases. But the 
burden lies with the schools, and they must continue 
to have something new to offer. They must be 
ready at all times to accept the practical problems 
presented to them and assist in their solution. By 
following the trend of prices and profits, the schools 
ought to be able to give intelligent direction in the 
diversification of crops. In this respect they will 



AGRICULTURE AND ITS NEEDS 107 

continue to be the farmer's compass even after his 
children have begun to learn the rudiments of soil 
chemistry. 

Some farmers on farms of from eighty to one 
hundred and fifty acres, remote from the larger 
markets, have found it profitable to engage in fruit 
growing for local markets. Apples, pears, peaches, 
plums and berries, even vegetables, find a ready mar- 
ket in the smaller towns and villages where farmers 
devote a little time to the industry. It is not uncom- 
mon to find these smaller farms furnishing labor to 
half a dozen men and producing a net profit far in 
excess of that derived from vast tracts where <iiver- 
sified farming is not so easily carried out. 

It is true that fruit growing in a small way or 
incidental truck gardening requires the same scien- 
tific attention as the industry on a larger scale if 
success is expected. Trees have to be sprayed regu- 
larly and pruning attended to promptly. Trees will 
no longer produce fruit unless they receive constant 
care. 

A farm of one hundred acres in Illinois, Indiana 
or Ohio may furnish forage for fifty head of hogs 
twice a year, with red clover for fall pasture, but 
the same farm may furnish forage for one hundred 
head twice a year by the maintenance of a five-acre 
field of alfalfa for hay and for fall pasture after 
two or three cuttings. These are merely phases of 
diversified farming, the results of experimentation 



108 LEARNING TO EARN 

and planning, that may increase the revenues of the 
same farm by one- fourth. 

The farmer's interest in road-building is univer- 
sally recognized. Good roads furnish easy access to 
markets and reduce the wear of the farmer's vehi- 
cles and machinery. They are civilizing agencies 
that open up to him the outside v^orld, even more 
than railroads or trolley lines. Moreover, the 
farmer is interested not so much in the volume of 
expenditures for road-building, which amount to 
six hundred million dollars each year, as in spending 
wisely the money invested in this enterprise. He 
has a right to know whether the forty- four million 
dollars expended in state aid of road-building in 
1914 was economically used. He ought to know 
enough about making roads to find in a general way 
the answer for himself. The farmer has no great 
commercial interest in the construction of so-called 
trunk line highways. The Lincoln highway and the 
Dixie highway are all very happily conceived con- 
veniences for gentlemen who can afford to spend 
their winters in Florida. Except to the farmers 
who may live adjacent to such highways, they mean 
very little more than would the adding of another 
ring to the planet Saturn. The farmer's principal 
interest in roads for the present is confined to those 
of his own township and county. 

The farmer should understand the importance of 
a discriminating selection of seeds and their prepara- 



AGRICULTURE AND ITS NEEDS 109 

tion for planting, how to prepare the soil and how 
to cultivate it to conserve moisture, the chemical 
properties of different soils and of commercial fer- 
tilizer and what elements are needed for particular 
soils and particular crops, the growing of fruit and 
vegetables, the care of young trees and vines and the 
fertilization of trees. 

Conservation is an important element in produc- 
tion and profits. The farmer needs to know the 
life history of crop pests and how best to avoid 
their ravages, the life history of orchard pests and 
the possibilities of spraying. The San Jose scale 
alone has cost the United States fifty million dol- 
lars and is now costing this country in damages to 
fruit trees five million dollars annually. The life 
history of common weeds and how they may be 
eradicated will constitute the most competent course 
in botany to be given in the public schools. The 
annual loss due to weeds in the United States ap- 
proximates a half billion dollars and the dockage of 
wheat in one state, Minnesota, amounts to a waste 
annually of two and one-half million dollars. Indi- 
ana's weed loss is estimated at fifteen and one-half 
million dollars every year. The care of farm ma- 
chinery is not so much a matter of skill as it is a 
matter of habit. If the boy is taught to take care of 
his tools in the manual-training shop, he is not likely 
to become careless with his machinery. Farm ma- 
chinery in use to-day is valued at nearly a billion and 



110 LEARNING TO EARN 

a half dollars and probably a fourth of this value 
is lost every year through sheer carelessness. 

Raising live stock has become an important in- 
dustry on the farm. Its value to-day is nearly one- 
eighth that of all farm property. The young farmer 
will find it profitable to know the virtues of the 
various breeds, about their care and feeding, dis- 
eases common to domestic animals and something 
about their treatment and prevention. Poultry rais- 
ing and dairying should not be neglected. 

In the manual-training shop, the young man will 
learn, and does now where manual training is 
taught, the use of small tools necessary on the farm, 
and all he needs to know about electricity and 
physics. This knowledge is more important than 
formerly because of the possibilities of new and im- 
proved labor-saving devices. 

As one authority has said: "The movement of 
agricultural education is broader and more compre- 
hensive than the mere adding of a recitation once a 
day from a text-book telling in a brief way how 
soil is formed, how plants should be raised, and giv- 
ing a few pictures of fancy poultry and high-bred 
stock." 

While agricultural education in the country pro- 
ceeds upon the theory that the dominant vocational 
instincts of children in a rural community are agri- 
cultural and not industrial or professional, care 
should be taken that country boys whose vocational 



AGRICULTURE AND ITS NEEDS 111 

instincts are not agricultural will receive equal en- 
couragement to follow out the bent of their voca- 
tional inclinations, whatever they may be. A good 
mechanic or a good physician must not be spoiled 
in a vain endeavor to make out of him a good 
farmer. A carefully planned system of vocational 
guidance will discover the young man or young 
woman with anomalous tendencies toward the 
choice of a life-calling. 

Furthermore, the curriculum must be flexible. 
The teacher of the future will be capable of using 
every resource which the community offers. The 
application of what is taught will generally have to 
do with the,problerr|.s of the community. If the les- 
son be about weeds and their eradication, the study 
ought to concern the weeds that infest the farms of a 
single locality; if about crop pests, the study should 
deal with those pests current at that time and in that 
place; if about the care of machinery, the exhibits 
must be the machinery used in the locality where 
the boys live. If botany is studied in the rural 
schools of Illinois, for instance, the text ought to be 
one written for Illinois and not New York or Mas- 
sachusetts. It is the failure of the teacher to use 
the resources available locally that has made the 
school uninteresting to a very large per cent, of 
boys between the ages of ten and sixteen who are 
not in school during any part of the school year. 
There will have to be a more careful preparation of 



112 LEARNING TO EARN 

text-books, and the book that may be used intelli- 
gently in one part of a state may be wholly incon- 
gruous in another. 

The independent success of a few men of broad 
vision and of infinite capacity for converting the 
dreary details of farm life into interesting prob- 
lems — and of solving them, has exerted a localized 
influence for better farming. Men of large business 
interests dependent upon agricultural prosperity, 
who have enjoyed sufficient leisure to become in- 
trospective, have contributed occasional brochures 
of extraordinary interest on such subjects as the 
imminent shortage of the food supply, the absence 
of more free land, high prices, waste, drainage, the 
middlemen and the railroads. All of these questions 
are so closely related to the business of successful 
farming that they have elicited wide-spread interest 
among all classes of people, including professional 
educators. 

Young men who have gone from the farm to the 
city to avoid the wearisome monotony of sowing 
and reaping and have failed to find the city all they 
hoped it might be and who have retraced their steps 
back to the farm, have proved not infrequently that 
zeal in rural life may be acquired from living for a 
time in the city. These young men, after a brief so- 
journ, have brought many helpful things with them 
from the city, not the least of which are method 
in doing work and mental habits which make possi- 



AGRICULTURE AND ITS NEEDS 113 

ble a more or less scientific approach to bountiful 
yields of corn and wheat, a profitable orchard and 
well-considered marketing. 

But these are merely sidelights of the movement 
for a system of agricultural education that will be 
universal in its sphere. Although agricultural pros- 
perity apparently is greater to-day than ever before, 
we should not undertake to maintain that conditions 
are so much better because the aggregate wealth is 
greater. We are not quite so ready to cite aggregate 
wealth as an evidence of prosperity as we once 
were. We now know the fallacy of the allegation 
that three men are prosperous if one of them has 
ninety-five per cent, of their total wealth. * 

Not long ago there was a period from the middle 
of November to the first of March when very little 
work was done on the farm. The business man can 
not afford a four- or five-months' vacation, nor can 
the farmer. The business man hardly dares to quit 
work for two weeks. Not that the farmer does not 
work hard enough, but his work is poorly planned 
if he has nothing that he can do a third of each 
year. It were far better for the farmer to quit work 
at noon on Saturday every week in the year than to 
work long hours during the spring and summer sea- 
son and cease work altogether during the winter 
months. The farmer who loves his work and who 
is bent on attacking its problems systematically will 
not care to pass long periods in absolute idleness. 



114 LEARNING TO EARN 

He will find something profitable to do, no matter 
how bad the weather may be, and he will work 
where he may be comfortable. The first warm days 
of spring will not find his stable doors banked with 
manure, his seed for the spring planting unprovided 
or his tools unfit for immediate use. He will have 
carefully planned his work for the next season and 
will have attended carefully to the feeding of his 
stock. The long evenings he will have spent in read- 
ing the literature of the farm. 

As the landscape gardener plans the beautiful 
park with its boulevards, its lagoon, its shrubbery 
and its attractive vistas, so must the farmer plan 
his work long in advance of the actual effort. 

As much perhaps as any other industry, farming 
has become one for highly specialized and trained 
minds. It has always required brains as well as 
brawn, but as long as there was no danger of under- 
production, it was not so important socially that 
many active-minded young men left the farm for 
the city and that there remained the young men who 
lacked sufficient initiative to depart from the ways 
of their fathers. To-day it is different. As prices of 
food products have risen, as markets have widened 
and values of farm lands increased, farming is far 
more a vocation for brains than ever before. Young 
men who inherit farms which their fathers and 
grandfathers carved out of a rude wilderness may 
be able to get on by following obsolete methods. 



AGRICULTURE AND ITS NEEDS 115 

but young men not so fortunate will never be able 
to own a farm of their own unless their vision is 
widened by scientific facts. 

The farmer will not be able to escape muscular 
effort altogether. The hard labor must be per- 
formed. Drains must be laid, the soil plowed and 
cultivated, the harvest reaped, no matter how hot 
the sun may be. Improved machinery, however, has 
already done much to lighten the labors of the 
farmer and will do even more. 

Agricultural education will do more to lift the 
farmer to a plane of absolute equality with business 
and the professions than any movement yet started 
in this country. The country "rube" will be remem- 
bered only in fiction and in silly plays that have long 
runs on Broadway. Agricultural education will give 
to the farmer a new self-confidence, a new self- 
respect. It will secure his economic status and widen 
his social vision. 



CHAPTER VI 

BUSINESS AND ITS EDUCATIONAL NEEDS 

Four fundamental processes of business — Distribution is vital 
to the economic progress of the nation — Exploitation of nat- 
ural resources no longer possible — Specific education for the 
science of business is needed — All classes should become fa- 
miliar with elementary business practises — Agencies of educa- 
tion have failed to grasp commercial problems — Certain as- 
pects of foreign trade — Germany's commercial prestige 
founded on the careful training of commercial workers — Our 
need of trained consuls — Seven million people depend upon 
"picking-up" process of education — Our commercial failures 
are increasing — Our lack of self-reliance — Labor efficiency is 
a matter of simplified effort — Mismanagement of railroads — 
Training for salesmanship — Advertising — Our banking system 
is inadequate — Commercial education in Germany — Our edu- 
cational needs. 

Business has to do with four important processes 
— the production, preparation, distribution and con- 
sumption of commodities. Business, therefore, has 
to do with the most improved methods by which 
these processes may be carried on. It is through 
their intelligent performance, as Herbert Spencer 
said, that civilized life is made possible. Their in- 
telligent performance depends, as Spencer also said, 
upon scientific knowledge. There is no phase of 
human life that does not depend for perpetuity and 
wholesome progress upon accurate business precepts 
and practises. 

116 



BUSINESS AND ITS NEEDS 117 

Of the four important processes with which busi- 
ness is concerned, distribution is most vital to all our 
people. It affects a greater number of people di- 
rectly because it opens or closes to them the chan- 
nels of consumption. Its indirect effects are felt al- 
most as keenly in the production and preparation of 
commodities because these processes must look ul- 
timately to markets which our system of distribu- 
tion seeks out and finds. From the social point of 
view, therefore, distribution determines to some ex- 
tent the economic status of all our people. This is 
particularly true since we are all consumers and 
since about twenty-five million workers are also en- 
gaged either in primary production or in the^ prep- 
aration of commodities for consumption. 

While the country suffers a most pressing need 
for improved methods of distribution, an equally 
urgent need exists among the seven million men and 
women engaged in all departments of business for a 
more efficient grasp of their routine duties; a more 
comprehensive understanding of the commercial ob- 
jective; a more thoroughly scientific approach to 
business details. Since business necessarily includes 
the directing energy of production and preparation 
as well as the entire energy in the distribution of 
commodities, it is with these various phases of in- 
dustry and commerce that we are here interested. 

While we are providing vocational education for 
the industrial worker, the farmer and home-maker, 



118 LEARNING TO EARN 

we must not neglect the directing minds and hands 
of production and preparation, especially in mining 
and manufacturing, or the energy by which raw or 
finished products are distributed. This energy also 
must be trained. The minds which control the en- 
ergy are susceptible to education for efficiency, hith- 
erto unrealized. There can be no considerable prog- 
ress in business unless executives and managers and 
officials are capable, and education for business 
might concern itself solely with the training of ex- 
ecutives and managers and officials except that a 
great body of commercial workers — small mer- 
chants, salesmen, stenographers, bookkeepers, clerks 
• — would be neglected altogether. The lower reaches 
in the process of distribution are important to the 
success of the higher reaches. Education for busi- 
ness has to do with the training of accountants and 
clerks quite as much as sales managers or purchas- 
ing agents, even though the emphasis of this chap- 
ter rests, as it ought to rest at this time, on the larger 
shortcomings of business — those for which man- 
agers and directors are mainly responsible. 

Never before did the very happiness and com- 
fort of our people so much depend upon a scientific 
grasp of business. We can no longer depend for our 
prosperity upon the exploitation of raw materials — 
land, minerals and forests — because, forsooth, they 
are not available for further exploitation. Agricul- 
ture invokes our attention because it has come to be 



BUSINESS AND ITS NEEDS 119 

a problem of yielding a satisfactory return on fixed 
capital as well as of feeding our people. Mining can 
hardly keep ahead of consumption, and the best 
grades of lumber available a generation ago are not 
to be had to-day at fancy prices. Agriculture, min- 
ing and lumbering, by necessity reduced to quanti- 
tative formulae, have brought industry, trade, trans- 
portation and banking, face to face with violent 
readjustments of method and imminent commercial 
problems where exact knowledge accessible to 
trained minds only is helpful. We have now to look 
for markets for things we do not yet produce be- 
cause thirty-eight million people must have employ- 
ment at a comfortable wage. We have to consider 
untried processes because old ways fail to keep go- 
ing industrial, mercantile and financial enterprise. 
If we suffer from commercial depressions, we must 
remember that agriculture is haphazard, industry 
inefficient, trade prejudiced by obsolete theories and 
banking behind the times it seeks to serve. Primary 
production being wasteful, the subsequent stages by 
which it reaches the consumer are disorganized, un- 
reliable and extravagant. What we need is not so 
much statutes which declare certain practises legally 
wrong, but a public awakening to the fact that prac- 
tises legally wrong are actually wrong as matters of 
national or individual policy. Specific education for 
the innumerable departments of business — education 
that will reduce business to a science and meet 



120 LEARNING TO EARN 

squarely the imminent problems of the commercial 
vocations, is our crying need at this time. 

Whatever vocation the young man chooses; 
whether he identify himself with the wage-earners, 
the shop-keepers, the farmers or with one of the 
professions, he ought to know the elements of busi- 
ness practise — the simpler details of banking, the 
general functions, uses and elementary law of 
stocks, bonds, mortgages, deeds, notes and con- 
tracts; methods for the quick calculation of interest 
and discount; the fundamental law governing part- 
nerships, stock companies and corporations ; the ele- 
ments of taxation and perhaps the workings of 
credit bureaus and commercial agencies. That young 
men may have this information when they begin the 
business of life, instruction should begin in the ele- 
mentary or prevocational schools. For the purposes 
of grouping its vital departments and for the pur- 
poses of this chapter, business may be said to em- 
brace manufacturing, transportation, merchandising 
and banking. The question presented herein is, what 
may education do for business? What may educa- 
tion do for manufacturing, for transportation, for 
mercantile operations, for banking? It does not re- 
quire an imagination to believe that manufacturing 
is not so efficient as it ought to be ; that transporta- 
tion facilities are insufficient, somewhat unreliable 
and wasteful; that the retail and wholesale trading 
in merchandise is leaky, wanting in vision, moral- 



BUSINESS AND ITS NEEDS 121 

ity and scientific management; that banking is un- 
trustworthy, inadequate, over-greedy and narrow- 
gauged. What may education do to create better 
conditions in the four departments of business? 
There has been Httle scientific study and criticism 
of the commercial objective. Business itself has 
evolved practically all of the scientific knowledge at 
hand regarding commercial principles and practises. 
The agencies of education have contributed little. 

"Business," says Cheesman A. Herrick,^ "now 
means more than a rule of thumb; it is complex, in- 
tricate, scientific, and those who are to engage in it 
need a different equipment than has hitherto*been 
thought sufficient for the business man." 

The equipment needed for business varies, nat- 
urally, with the nature of the particular business for 
the very reason that it is complex, intricate, scien- 
tific. No doubt some men will be "born" to a par- 
ticular business just as some are perhaps "born" to 
a particular trade, but there is an opportunity 
through the channels of education for those badly 
born to be reborn. Education is able to train for 
manufacturing even though the time is remote when 
it will train for manufacturing, say of washing ma- 
chines. There are certain general principles, how- 
ever, in the science of manufacturing washing ma- 
chines that apply equally to the manufacture of 



* Commercial Education, A Demand of the Times, 



122 LEARNING TO EARN 



stoves or automobiles. Education can present these 
principles to young men who expect to engage in 
manufacturing. The colleges have been trying to 
teach the science of transportation for many years, 
but young men who expect to engage in transporta- 
tion enterprise need to know far more about 
transportation than merely the general history of its 
development. There is a political division on the 
question of aids and subsidies to promote water 
transportation which has obscured the merits of the 
question. Mercantile operations present a tortuous 
path to success and those who have engaged in the 
retail or wholesale trade will bear witness to this 
truth. Education can at least find the approximate 
width of this path and point out its boundaries. 

Banking is admitted to be the keel of commerce, 
the foundation of a nation's prosperity, the magic 
touch that sets in motion every business enterprise. 
Bankers lack vision more than anything else, but 
lack of vision is only another name for ignorance. 
Bankers can be educated for their vocation and, 
valuable as apprenticeship is, they can acquire from 
an educational program the assembled intelligence 
of the banking world, something they will never be 
able to get in a single accounting room. 

Certain information and training are needed in 
all business — manufacturing, transportation, mer- 
chandising and banking. Penmanship, commercial 
arithmetic, bookkeeping, commercial geography, the 



BUSINESS AND ITS NEEDS 123 

natural sciences, typewriting and stenography, 
industrial history, business forms, and correspond- 
ence, the science of trade, poHtical economy, cost 
accounting, some modern languages, business ad- 
ministration and the theory of modern mercantile 
operations may well be embraced in a general system 
in training for business to which may be added, say, 
the principles of corporation finance, salesmanship, 
advertising, real estate taxation, commercial law, 
money and credit, insurance, study of raw mate- 
rials, civil government, foreign trade customs, ac- 
cording to the scope of business for which prepara- 
tion is sought. This is merely a rough outHne of a 
program of training for business which will divide 
itself in accordance with the plan outlined in this 
book into prevocational, vocational and advanced 
vocational training. 

There is a hint of hopefulness in certain aspects 
of our foreign trade. We are exporting a greater 
percentage of finished products than ever before and 
importing a considerably greater quantity of raw 
products. Great Britain, Germany and France have 
been our greatest foreign customers, buying annu- 
ally of us merchandise valued at more than a billion 
dollars. The European military crisis has greatly 
changed the character of this trade and our lack of 
merchant ships has had a further depressing effect 
on our foreign commerce. We have suffered a tem- 
porary loss of revenue on account of the suspension 



124 LEARNING TO EARN 

of foreign textile operations, but if the war should 
stimulate the expansion of domestic manufacturing 
and the use of our raw cotton at home, our tem- 
porary embarrassment would be unimportant. We 
ought to abandon our trade in such commodities as 
logs and unfinished lumber of which we are accus- 
tomed to sell Germany, products valued at five and 
one-half million dollars. The United States must 
conserve its lumber for domestic consumption. 

South American trade is inviting, especially since 
the completion of the Panama Canal, which shortens 
the distance from eastern cities to South American 
ports south of the western terminal by five thousand 
miles. But our steamship service must be improved, 
we must buy the raw products of South America 
that ships may be loaded both ways and establish 
American banks for the benefit of this trade. We 
ought to be able to compete with Great Britain and 
Germany in the sale of such commodities as electric 
wire and cables, iron and steel wire, general machin- 
ery, railway coaches and cars, cement, firearms and 
ammunition, tubes, pipes and motor-cars. As a mat- 
ter of fact, we are a bad third in the trade of practi- 
cally all these commodities. 

Germany won the trade of the South American 
republics in its laboratories and in its schoolrooms 
by patient and skilful attention to the needs of the 
country. The United States can win this trade as 
Germany won it. We must adopt the same plan of 



BUSINESS AND ITS NEEDS 125 

action. The rule of thumb must be abandoned. Busi- 
ness must be made scientific. Commercial education 
can give to our foreign business the scientific basis 
it has so long needed. Spanish is the prevailing 
tongue throughout Mexico and South America and 
in our commercial schools it ought to be emphasized 
to the exclusion of languages which are wanting in 
commercial significance. We must seek the markets 
of South America, Mexico and the Orient and a 
knowledge of their languages is imperative to this 
end. 

We need better trained consuls to represent us in 
foreign markets and we need to arouse an interest 
among our business men in the facilities they already 
furnish. There ought to be special provision for 
training young men for foreign trade posts. At 
present, our consular service smacks too much of the 
sinecure, largely because our representatives, unless 
they have had wide experience, know little about 
their work and have little inspiration for it. 

"The getting of markets," says Herrick,^ "is not 
extravagant claims; it is a matter of education, and 
if we are to insure our economic future, we must 
give to our commercial leaders wide and deep train- 
ing in the special subjects with which they have to 
deal." 



^ Cheesman A. Herrick, Commercial Education, A Demand 
of the Times, in Supplement to Fifth Yearbook of National 
Herbart Society. 



126 LEARNING TO EARN 

But our domestic trade requires careful consider- 
ation and while we are devoting ourselves to the 
commercial needs of South America, we should not 
forget that home industry and home markets and 
home consumption are more nearly vital to our pros- 
perity and prestige. "It is mere tradition," says one 
writer, "which makes the foreign field seem a more 
proper subject of governmental solicitude than the 
domestic field." 

There were nearly seven million people over ten 
years of age in 1910 engaged in work which may be 
included properly in the managing or business vo- 
cations. These seven million people included the 
managers, superintendents, foremen, overseers and 
officials of manufactories, retailers, clerks, traveling 
salesmen, bookkeepers, persons directing mining en- 
terprises and about a half million people actively 
engaged in directing transportation and communi- 
cation. Seven million people represent about eight- 
een per cent, of all the people of the United States 
over ten years of age engaged in gainful occupa- 
tions. This eighteen per cent, is an especially im- 
portant per cent, to the prosperity of all enterprise 
because it encompasses the directing energy. 

It is these seven million people who are forced to 
get their education for business in the "nooks and 
corners," who receive no specific assistance from the 
public schools. They have acquired a limited knowl- 
edge of the science of business by empirical meth- 



BUSINESS AND ITS NEEDS 127 

ods, by the "picking-up" process. Such training in 
the office, store and shop, is generally less compre- 
hensive than the source. It yields to the same vari- 
able as the dirt got from one hole to fill up the next. 
The son, who inherits his father's business which it 
has taken a lifetime to build, may destroy every- 
thing by a few years of reckless misdirection, merely 
because he has had no opportunity for training 
other than that in dead languages obtained in uni- 
versities attractive because of their traditions. 

The *'hocus-pocus" process of catching on to sci- 
entific methods of business is quite inadequate for 
present-day needs. It does not develop initiative, but 
is dependent wholly upon imitation. It does not de- 
velop a progressive spirit, but is content to follow 
archaic methods. It fails to produce a spirit of per- 
manence in business and industry and on the con- 
trary is speculative, insecure and unethical. Sales 
managers, failing to realize on stupid or visionary 
plans, are wont to turn to sharp practises and our 
sharp practise has given us a bad name in most of 
the great markets of the world. Our business men 
are not prepared to meet the new and changing de- 
mands of industry and trade. A superior economic 
leadership is required. A wider vision is demanded. 
Our commercial responsibilities have been very 
much augmented lately by territorial expansion, by 
the approaching exhaustion of our natural re- 
sources, by our increased population, by the unex- 



128 



LEARNING TO EARN 



pected demand of European countries for our 
products. 

Since 1880, the population of the United States 
has just about doubled; the wealth of the country- 
has considerably more than doubled, as has also the 
number of manufacturing establishments. At the 
same time, the number of commercial failures in the 
United States has more than trebled. Likewise, the 
liabilities of fifteen thousand-odd firms failing in 
1912 were more than three times the liabilities of 
the firms failing in 1880. The number of commer- 
cial failures in the comparatively normal year of 
1912 was three times the failures of the panic of 
1873 and exceeded the failures during the panic of 
1893. Of the total failures in 1913, 69.9 per cent, 
were mercantile firms, 26.3 per cent, were manu- 
facturers, and 3.9 per cent, were brokers and trans- 
porters. More than 90 per cent, of all tradesmen 
are said to fail, and the average life of all business 
enterprises is only a very few years. This is not a 
creditable record for the American business man, 
not an enviable record for the business of the coun- 
try. 

There should be a more delicate coordination in 
primary and secondary industrial processes, coordi- 
nation in the manufacturing process, coordination 
in the distribution process and coordination be- 
tween the two processes. EfHciency is the magic 
word, efificiency not only of labor, but efficiency of 



BUSINESS AND ITS NEEDS 129 

the energy which directs labor. "The labor to be 
made more effective," said Louis D. Brandeis, "is 
that of the managers and high-salaried officials quite 
as much as that of the wage-earners." 

In the United States, business has depended too 
much on fictitious aids. There is lacking both the 
spirit of independence and self-reliance, a spirit that 
is conscious of its own power, wiUing to work out 
its own destinies, and safe in its own resourceful- 
ness. Business men lean too much on tariff sched- 
ules, subsidies and bonuses. Public utility magnates 
will not undertake a new enterprise unless they are 
presented with a franchise that practically ro|js the 
people of their present rights and future generations 
of their rightful heritage. Bankers grumble about 
currency laws and have nothing better to suggest 
than the vague outlines of a plan which would only 
accentuate whatever viciousness there may be in the 
present banking system. 

Here again, we shall find the explanation in the 
failure of the educational system to train young 
men for business as a fixed and definite vocation, — 
a vocation intimately related to the economic life of 
the nation. 

When men are trained scientifically for business, 
the rule of thumb will no longer govern. Accuracy 
and precision will prevail. We will not be compelled 
to await the annual audit to determine whether a 
firm has made money. Correct systems of cost ac- 



130 LEARNING TO EARN 

counting, rigidly maintained, will determine in- 
stantly what has been accomplished and whether the 
balance is on the debit or credit side of the ledger. 
Business is very much in need of cost accounting, a 
subject which yields readily to instruction in the 
vocation schools of commerce. 

Our people need to be educated to use commodi- 
ties of the very best material and workmanship. Any 
other policy is extravagant and wasteful. Every 
year, for instance, we waste many million dollars in 
buying cheap furniture — chairs, tables and beds — • 
that fall to pieces in a few months. Comparatively, 
we make very little good furniture in this country, 
first, because we do not have workmen who know 
how to produce it, and second, because the purchaser 
has been deluded into believing that bizarre curves 
of a power-driven chisel are preferable to material 
and workmanship. If we educate every young man 
to the economy of good material and good work- 
manship and a few of them to produce such finished 
products in the furniture industry, there will not be 
left a market for the "clap-trap" which fills the 
homes of people with modest incomes. The German 
people have been educated to the use of better ma- 
terial and workmanship in precisely this way. 

Manufacturing and mercantile plants are ineffi- 
ciently operated because, probably, the directing 
hand does not know how to make them efficient. 
When the directing hand can not determine what is 



BUSINESS AND ITS NEEDS 131 

wrong, it is quite natural to charge deficiencies to 
labor. If foremen, superintendents and managers 
lack scientific preparation for the positions they fill, 
they will not know what is to be done when they find 
themselves being outstripped by a competitor. 

Raw materials must be available in just sufficient 
quantity to insure efficient handling. Every part of 
the manufacturing plant must be utilized for maxi- 
mum production. There must be no waste, no idle 
machinery, if it is possible to avoid it. Working cap- 
ital must be safeguarded and conserved, but oppor- 
tunities for plant expansion must not be permitted 
to pass. In mercantile enterprises every department 
must be "miade to pay." Deliveries must be prompt, 
for there is no better way to get and hold customers. 

Labor efficiency is not a matter of "speeding up" 
so much as of simplified effort — of removing drags 
on the workman's energy. This is a subject calling 
for intelligent study by foremen, superintendents 
and "higher-ups." The workman is not responsible, 
and managers who persist in their complaints 
against the "decreasing efficiency of labor" are them- 
selves often at fault. Furthermore, managers of in- 
dustrial, mercantile and transportation enterprises 
must be reconciled to the steady improvement of 
wages and working conditions. For this reason, a 
constant adjustment and readjustment of methods 
to conform to new cost units will be necessary. In- 
creased wages and improved working conditions will 



132 



LEARNING TO EARN 



be brought about largely by collective bargaining 
and industrial managers may as well acquiesce in 
the spread of collective bargaining because it is a 
phase of our new democracy — industrial democracy 
— and will not be surrendered. 

We are just passing through an era of railroad 
reorganization in this country. We have witnessed 
the financial collapse of one railroad after another 
and we have seen officers and directors dragged 
through the courts to answer to charges of criminal 
neglect, wrongful manipulation of securities and 
gross mismanagement. In the wake of investigation, 
revelation and prosecution, the railroads have come 
humbly enough before the bar of regulatory com- 
missions asking for increased rates. In some cases, 
the petitions have been granted but, on the whole, 
the tangled state of their finances and the attendant 
public distrust have prevented a fair and impartial 
consideration of their petitions. Well managed 
roads have suffered the odium that attaches gen- 
erally to the railroad business. It is difficult to de- 
termine how much of the mismanagement is due to 
greed, wilful inefficiency and unrestrained specula- 
tion and how much is due to ignorance. In some 
cases, officers and directors have been shrewd 
enough to loot a railroad treasury and escape prose- 
cution. Education for business is a hopeless remedy 
in such cases. What is needed, rather, is education 
in morals. 



BUSINESS AND ITS NEEDS 133 

But the era of speculative control is at least 
checked and, more than ever before, railroads will 
be operated for service. Regulative bodies are ex- 
pected to insist that common carriers will no longer 
be permitted to capitalize earnings; that transpor- 
tation be reduced to the science of operation. 
Assuming that this is true and remembering that a 
well-known corporation lawyer, who has since dem- 
onstrated the truth of some charges he made against 
the railroads, estimated that they waste a million 
dollars a day, it is almost conclusive that education 
can do something for transportation. It ought not 
to be necessary to have the Interstate Commerce 
Commission disclose the existence of practises that 
are unproductive and wasteful where they ought to 
be otherwise. Much to the chagrin of the railroad 
managers, the Commission has repeatedly done this 
very thing. Yet, the only explanation offered by the 
railroads was that others were doing the same. If 
education for transportation can merely devise a 
correct basis by which the cost of carrying different 
classes of mail may be computed, it will have thor- 
oughly justified the expense of inaugurating such a 
system of vocational training. 

Inefficient salesmanship is only one phase of the 
mercantile business. It is pitiable enough to witness 
a salesman hunt a catalog by which to identify, by 
the period it represents, a piece of furniture or to 
mistake solid mahogany for veneer, but the retail 



134 LEARNING TO EARN 

and jobbers' business has a hundred angles where 
inexcusable blunders are made. 

There is scarcely a large department store which 
every day does not lose a good customer because de- 
partment stores are overrun with f our-dollar-a-week 
clerks. It is bad enough, perhaps, to pay girls four 
dollars a week — bad from the social point of view — 
but it is quite as disastrous to business to employ 
young women who are so poorly trained that they 
can earn no more than that amount. Store managers 
do recognize, of course, a difference in selling ability 
since salaries vary, but apparently they have not 
been able to understand that an inefficient salesman 
or saleswoman, the four-dollar-a-week order, is a 
positive injury to the prosperity of a business. Very 
few store managers have been able to comprehend 
the possibilities of efficient training for salesman- 
ship. Unless the public is to believe that department 
stores presume to impose upon the credulity of their 
patrons, it is hard to explain the presence of igno- 
rant and discourteous salesmen. There are many 
elements in the advertising of the average depart- 
ment store — sheer quackery — which suggest that 
this is precisely the philosophy behind the ineffi- 
ciency of salesmanship in department stores. What 
is true of department stores is equally true of retail 
business generally. 

Of course, it is worth while to have correspond- 
ence neatly typed and correctly spelled, but it is also 



BUSINESS AND ITS NEEDS 135 

worth while to depart from stereotyped language in 
correspondence. Business can not survive long un- 
der the stress of modern competition unless there 
is a rigid system of cost accounting, and the mercan- 
tile business is no exception. Business men need to 
have impressed upon them at a time of life when 
new principles make their greatest impression — in 
their youth — the importance of courteous service, 
rigid economy in operation, prompt deliveries and 
accurate fulfillment of promises and estimates. 
Bankers who advance money to maintain commer- 
cial enterprises have a right to expect that estimates 
are conservative and that merchants as well as man- 
ufacturers and transporters will do everything hu- 
manly possible, not merely to equal the estimate, but 
to exceed it. Too many young men fail in mercantile 
capacities because they bring to the business no new 
ideas or because they merely fall into the rut already 
prepared for them by those who are too old to learn 
anything new and too stupid to admit their short- 
comings. 

There is growing up in America strong sentiment 
for truthful advertising. Here and there a firm has 
won for itself an enviable position in the commer- 
cial world because its advertising is truthful and the 
public knows it. On the whole, if advertising is a 
disappointment and unfruitful, it is because the ma- 
jority of people have little confidence in it. Adver- 
tising is not only a great science in itself, but an im- 



136 LEARNING TO EARN 

portant phase of business and a natural unit in any 
program of training for business. 

Without wise and progressive banking facilities 
no country can accomplish very much of conse- 
quence in domestic or foreign commerce. Not the 
least important reason for German and English 
prestige in South American markets at the begin- 
ning of the European war was the facility afforded 
the merchants of these countries for doing business 
with German and English banks in South American 
republics. In the United States, our banking facili- 
ties have been wholly inadequate and quite unrelia- 
ble. Moreover, no system of banking will of itself 
prove to be adequate. Bankers of wider vision are 
necessary to the success of any system. Banking 
is a distinct vocation. It must understand the needs 
of business and be prepared to meet all legitimate 
demands which business may make upon it. Too 
frequently the banker has stifled worthy enterprises 
by withdrawing or withholding credit at crucial 
stages. Too many business enterprises are controlled 
and attempts at operation made by men who are 
merely bankers. Control of the railroads by bankers 
accounts for much of their present trouble. Bankers 
too often are quite ignorant of more than the crud- 
est processes of operating mercantile, manufacturing 
and transportation enterprises. Moreover, their ob- 
ject is apt to be concerned too largely with specula- 
tion rather than operation. This is a distinct misfor- 



BUSINESS AND ITS NEEDS 137 

tune to business generally. Bankers either possess a 
narrow conception of their opportunities or they 
have proceeded into spheres with which they can not 
reasonably be expected to be familiar. Speculation 
is ruinous. Temporarily, it may provoke artificial 
results that seem beneficial, but disaster follows in its 
train. Years are then required to recover what was 
lost and what might have been gained by steady 
growth and wise systematic building. 

Business is interested In the utmost efforts to be 
made in behalf of conservation. It is Interested in 
the great annual losses from stream pollution, dam- 
ages from fire and flood, wear of machinery, useless 
and extravagant advertising, over-productiorf and 
over-buying. Only the man who attacks these wastes 
systematically can ever hope to eradicate them. We 
go on from year to year wasting our substance be- 
cause we do not have men capable of summoning the 
strong arm of science as a preventive. It would 
be an important aid to business, may we not believe, 
if young men had this knowledge brought home to 
them? 

Of course, the whole country is Interested In the 
efiiciency of business because efficiency not only is a 
problem for each individual, but it is a social prob- 
lem of vital importance. The efficiency of business 
is a social problem because society is becoming more 
and more industrial in its texture. It is not too much 
to say that the inefficiency of business is responsible 



138 LEARNING TO EARN 

not only for industrial depressions and unemploy- 
ment, but also for much of the social distress at- 
tending idle workshops and unemployment. The 
efficiency of business determines very largely not 
only the status of seven million people engaged in 
the managing and clerical vocations, the status of 
ten million wage-earners in manufacturing enter- 
prises, but also thirteen million persons over ten 
years of age engaged in farming. 

Nearly all the great European countries maintain 
elaborate systems of commercial education for the 
training of young men about to engage in business. 
Germany has more than twelve hundred commercial 
schools, the first of which was established at Cologne 
in 1897. The system includes several hundred con- 
tinuation schools for those who can devote only a 
part of their time to the pursuit of education. These 
continuation commercial schools are designed for 
persons from thirteen to sixteen years of age and 
provide a simple preparation for the lower commer- 
cial positions. A second group consists of higher 
commercial schools, equivalent to the last year of the 
American high school and the first two years of col- 
lege. The third group of German commercial schools 
trains for the highest commercial positions and the 
curriculum is merely a continuation of the curricu- 
lum for the second group. Germany also maintains 
schools for the training and education of those ac- 
tive in commercial life. The predominant feature of 



BUSINESS AND ITS NEEDS 139 

the German system of commercial education is that 
it not only is vocational, but cultural as well, be- 
cause it demands the "thorough mastery of scientific 
subject-matter." German training, we are told, 
"gives to the man who goes into a trade a markedly 
different attitude than is given him by Anglo-Saxon 
education. With us the business man finds his live- 
lihood in business, his life elsewhere; the German 
finds in business a means of life as well as liveli- 
hood." 

In the United States, more and more of the great 
universities are establishing departments of business 
and administration but, as might be expected with 
us, the work is not organized for practical applica- 
tion, and, moreover, we have a vital need for com- 
mercial education of a secondary grade. True, there 
are many commercial high schools in the country 
and nearly a half million students receiving instruc- 
tion in commercial branches, but half of them are 
attending private schools where education is lacking 
and training is only primary. We need a complete 
system of education for business that will begin not 
later than the first year of high school, also a sys- 
tem of continuation and part-time schools accessible 
to young men forced to leave school at the end of 
their elementary training and for mature workers, 
managers and executives. 

The curriculums of the business departments of 
the universities warrant the closest scrutiny that they 



140 LEARNING TO EARN 

may be made of practical benefit to the young man 
who wants to pursue a business career. This effort 
should not be permitted to lapse through the influ- 
ence of men who are classically trained only and who 
possess no native sympathy for the work they seek 
to do. 

It is just as logical that the universities should un- 
dertake commercial training of an advanced charac- 
ter, as it is that they should maintain special courses 
for training journalists, foresters, architects and li- 
brarians ; or, lawyers, physicians, engineers, dentists, 
preachers and druggists. Business is proving more 
and more attractive to young men educated in the 
colleges and universities. This is true despite the 
fact that until recent years they have given no es- 
pecial preparation for business careers. They have 
maintained thorough courses for the training of 
ministers, lawyers and physicians from the begin- 
ning, yet the statistics covering thirty-seven colleges 
and universities show that the number of graduates 
entering the ministry decreased from seventy per 
cent, in 1645 to 5.9 per cent, in 1900; the number 
of graduates entering the practise of law decreased 
from 33.4 per cent, in 1810, to 15.6 per cent, in 
1900. Also the number of graduates entering the 
practise of medicine has been decreasing since 1825, 
when it was 13.4 per cent. In 1900, the number 
was only 6.6 per cent. On the contrary, there has 
been an almost unbroken increase in the number of 



BUSINESS AND ITS NEEDS 141 

young men entering commercial pursuits since 1810. 
In that year the number of graduates of the thirty- 
seven colleges and universities who entered com- 
mercial pursuits was only 4.8 per cent, of the whole. 
In 1900, the percentage was 18.8. 

At the same time, the number of graduates of 
these thirty-seven colleges and universities who took 
up educational work increased from 3.1 per cent, in 
1790 to 2G.7 per cent, in 1900, but it does not appear 
nor is there any way of discovering whether this in- 
crease is due either to increased attractiveness of 
educational work or to a native predisposition to 
teaching. There is a strong presumption that the 
increase was due in part to the fact that youngVnen 
just graduated from these institutions found them- 
selves unable to earn a livelihood in any other way 
and accepted the schoolmaster's burdens as the al- 
ternative between a precarious existence and a vo- 
cation they did not particularly like. 

However that may be, the time is passed in this 
country when we are willing to concede any particu- 
lar social distinction to the man because he happens 
to be practising one of the so-called learned profes- 
sions. We are not so much deceived by the halo 
which tradition has placed on the brows of Webster 
and Everett as we once were. They were successful 
lawyers in their time and lived in an age when the 
law especially led to public service. Lately, we have 
seen men from all walks of life drawn into public 



142 LEARNING TO EARN 

service and perform their work with zeal, patriotism 
and efficiency. This alone has tended to dispel the 
false notion that distinction in public service may be 
won only through the law. 

Education for business, however, has a more prac- 
tical end than training for the hall of fame. It ad- 
dresses itself to the every-day needs of the manufac- 
turer, merchant, transporter and banker in quite the 
same way as the good physician goes about to diag- 
nose and treat our ills. Its mission is to facilitate the 
four great commercial processes, — production, prep- 
aration, distribution and consumption. 

To be successful, education must be analytical in 
its approach and comprehensive in its attack on the 
business man's problems. In a sentence, its purpose 
is to collect, classify and distribute through the voca- 
tional commercial schools and other public agencies, 
the intelligence of the commercial world. 



CHAPTER VII 

TRAINING FOR THE HOME 

Woman's chief vocational interest is the home — Effect of in- 
dustrial changes on the work of the home — Lack of a scien- 
tific approach — Meager efforts of the schools to train effi- 
ciently for the duties of the home — Variations in the 
curriculum — General outline of training: food, clothing, 
fashions, building, house furnishing, sanitation, the garden, 
marketing, care of infants, common remedies — Music as a 
vocation and an incidental interest — Education will lighten 
the burdens of the home. 

Home-making is a profession, a business, ^ sci- 
ence, an art. The most profitable education for 
women is education for home-making. It is, or 
ought to be, also the most interesting avenue through 
which the native instincts and impulses of the poten- 
tial wife and mother can find expression; the center 
of all the issues of the woman's life. If it is not now 
so, it is because the early training of the girl and 
young woman fails to give adequate encouragement 
to native instincts and impulses. It is because pres- 
ent training tends to disparage rather than promote 
the healthful normal growth of the woman's mind. 

Training for the home is designed only for 
women. Not all women, however, become home- 
makers. Only a very small percentage of women do 

143 



144 LEARNING TO EARN 

not — only a very few continue self-supporting 
through life. It is probably uneconomical to train 
young women for trades they will follow only three 
or four years. Unless a young woman has a decided 
bent for an industrial or commercial occupation and 
unless she determines not to marry and rear a fam- 
ily, her training should tend to equip her for home 
duties and home responsibilities. In this case she 
might become highly proficient as a seamstress, as a 
cook, as a milliner, as a nurse, as a gardener. If she 
live in the country, she might, for instance, be trained 
for the management of a poultry farm. Indiana has 
at least one woman, who, without any considerable 
previous knowledge of poultry, paid for eighty acres 
of land in three years from the profits of poultry. 
If a sufficient number of young women who want to 
follow a given trade permanently are to be found in 
any of our industrial centers, separate trade schools 
may be established. Yet it would seem the wise part 
to proceed slowly in this direction. If the woman 
is to be educated for any particular vocation, then 
the home would appear to be both the logical and 
sentimental center of her interest. 

It may be said, however, at this point that the 
outlines heretofore set forth for industrial, com- 
mercial and agricultural education apply quite as 
much to women as to men, and that women who are 
to pursue an independent career are quite as much 
in need of scientific education as men. Moreover, 



TRAINING FOR THE HOME 145 

the educational needs of industry, of business and of 
agriculture for trained specialists include a need of 
trained women workers. 

The part of a successful wife and home-maker is 
more important than that of the woman in business 
or the industries, because in the former capacity 
there is dependent upon her to some extent the finan- 
cial success of the marriage relationship — the happi- 
ness of her children, her husband and herself. It 
has been said that the wife is the disbursing agent of 
the marriage partnership and since it is doubtful if 
marriage can be a well-rounded success unless it is a 
financially prosperous partnership, the ability c^f the 
wife to get the largest return for household and 
family expenditures becomes the basis of marital 
happiness. But she will never know how to spend 
money wisely unless she is thoroughly trained for 
all the departments of the home and all the intricate 
aspects of home life. 

The character of the woman's work in the home 
has been greatly modified by our industrial revolu- 
tion. Formerly, the wife expended much of her 
energy in primary production of commodities con- 
sumed in the home. She spun her own yarn, wove 
her own cloth, made her own soap, and helped to 
raise her own food. Now most of the commodities 
consumed in the home can be purchased more 
cheaply than they can be produced first-hand. Never- 
theless, it is now highly necessary that the wife, act- 



146 LEARNING TO EARN 

ing as purchasing agent of the home, should be an 
expert judge of values. 

Present training is not even calculated to make 
her a judge of values. What she knows of this char- 
acter must be got from her mother or neighbors or 
from unfortunate experiences and experiments. 
Every department of the home has a scientific ap- 
proach and it is indispensable that each department 
be exposed to the young woman, from this angle. 

No other institution surpasses the home in oppor- 
tunities for order and symmetry, vision and beauty 
in its surroundings. Why have women failed to rec- 
ognize these opportunities ? Why have they failed to 
seize the problems of the home in the spirit of the 
artist? Simply because there has existed no agency 
for pointing out and unfolding the problems in their 
scientific aspects. The day laborer performs the 
drudgery because he is uneducated and untrained 
for the work of the director or manager. The work 
of the wife too seldom rises above the sordid tasks 
of drudgery or reaches the dignity of a science 
and an art, because the wife lacks the capacity of a 
household scientist, the vision of a household artist. 

The principal business of the woman is that of a 
home-maker, because a large majority of women 
marry and have thrust upon them the responsibili- 
ties of a home. And while the marriageable rate for 
marriageable women is higher in this country^ than 



* Census of 1900. 



TRAINING FOR THE HOME 147 

in any other country except Hungary, our divorce 
rate is also the highest in the world except Japan. 
In the whole country there is one divorce for every 
thirteen marriages, but in certain states the ratio of 
divorces to marriages is much greater. In Washing- 
ton, there is one divorce for every five marriages. 
Moreover, not all the failures of marriage are re- 
vealed on the dockets of the divorce courts. While 
unsuccessful marriages are not wholly due to lack 
of preparedness of the wife, they are partially so. If 
more women were carefully trained for the respon- 
sibilities of the home, probably there would be a 
wiser choice of mates and better results of the mar- 
riage partnership would follow. * 

The public schools have failed very materially to 
contribute to the successful education for the home. 
Elementary schools impart little information of use 
to wives, mothers and home-makers. Very little more 
may be said in behalf of the high schools and col- 
leges. In the elementary schools, girls learn the rudi- 
ments of reading, writing and arithmetic, a little 
about world geography that means nothing, a bare 
outline of American political history, a mass of 
meaningless jargon about English grammar, none of 
which is intelligible or usable, and a few discon- 
nected facts about human physiology, which for all 
practical purposes, might be the physiology of some 
extinct animal of the antediluvian age. The high 
school and colleges merely pursue the search for 



148 LEARNING TO EARN 

facts begun in the grades, facts which have nothing 
whatever to do with the commonest interests of the 
girl after she has become a woman. 

The pubhc schools have done little to arouse a 
scientific spirit among home-makers. They have 
taught a little cookery, a bit of sewing and millinery 
and so-called arts and crafts. But there has never 
been a well-planned system of education for the 
home, no well-rounded curriculum designed to train 
specifically for home-making as a profession, a busi- 
ness, a science and an art. Instruction has been 
incidental, detached and variable rather than sym- 
metrical, definite and concrete. Home economics 
so-called, consisting of a little cookery, or a little 
sewing, or both, frequently has been added as an 
appendage to a curriculum long ago obsolete for 
the time it would serve. It has seldom or never 
been admitted that cooking and sewing were the 
beginning of a thoroughgoing transformation of the 
public school curriculum. 

Yet they are the beginning of a sweeping revolu- 
tion which is to go on until we shall hear less and 
less about the history of decisive battles, the func- 
tions of the medulla oblongata, the twists and turns 
of the infinitive and participle, the deflections of 
trade winds and ocean currents. 

Training for the home will vary according to the 
social conditions of the community and in this coun- 
try — a melting pot for many peoples — somewhat ac- 



TRAINING FOR THE HOME 149 

cording to the dominant nationality resident in the 
community. It will vary as between city and coun- 
try especially; somewhat less between an industrial 
center and a city surrounded by an agricultural belt 
tributary to it. Training for the home in sections of 
the country where mining is the dominant industry 
will not call for the same curriculum as training for 
the home in the school of a fashionable New Eng- 
land village. Yet the general scheme is universal in 
its application. 

Training for the home will have to do specifically 
with the selection and preparation of food, selection 
of fabrics and the making of clothing, the construc- 
tion, furnishing and care of the home, planning and 
care of the garden, marketing, the care of infants, 
first aid to the sick and injured, something about 
physiology and hygiene and as far as personal tal- 
ents warrant, at least a limited study of music. 

It has been said that "half the cost of life is the 
price of food." Undoubtedly, this truth is empha- 
sized by the growing margin between retail prices 
of food and wages. It is emphasized further by the 
fact that an increasingly large majority of the popu- 
lation must consider the economic aspects of the 
food supply. With economic considerations more 
and more pressing, the selection and preparation of 
food is of growing importance. It is the daily prob- 
lem of getting the most nutritive food for the least 
money. 



150 LEARNING TO EARN 

In whatever plane of society, the selection and 
preparation of food is important. When the eco- 
nomic significance is wanting, the biological rises to 
the level of the economic. The notion prevails that 
the appetite is the safest guide to a choice of foods, 
yet in this day when the appetite has been perverted 
by intemperance, it can hardly be relied upon as an 
index to proper food or as a guide to health. If 
every one enjoyed normal health and if there were 
no economic limitations, the appetite might be de- 
pended upon as a criterion of diet. But the question 
of diet, we now know, is becoming more complex. 

Education must seize this problem as a scientific 
fact and reveal its complex phases to every class of 
society. Training for the home, therefore, must 
have to do with the science of foods ; with the struc- 
ture, composition, texture, flavor and digestibility of 
meats, the composition and fuel value of different 
cuts of meat, the comparative food value of meats 
and fish, and practical suggestions in regard to 
different methods of cooking; the food value of 
beans, peas, lentils and other legumes, fresh or 
dried, compared with other vegetables and with 
animal food; the place of eggs in diet and all 
possible substitutes; the composition, nutritive 
value and preparation of poultry for food; com- 
position, digestibility, nutritive value and hygienic 
importance of potatoes, sweet potatoes, beets, tur- 
nips and other starch-yielding and succulent root 



TRAINING FOR THE HOME 151 

crops; the food value of corn and corn products; 
digestibility and nutritive value of cereal breakfast 
foods, nuts and milk; composition, nutritive value 
and relative economy of the more common fruits; 
the household preparation of canned fruits, pre- 
serves, jellies, etc., for use in the home and for 
market, the principles of canning and preserving, 
sterilization and the use of utensils in canning. 

This outline is merely suggestive. The federal 
government is spending vast sums of money in ex- 
periments and investigations to determine what are 
the best and most economical foods for domestic ani- 
mals. The results of these experiments and i^jvesti- 
gations have been translated into practical informa- 
tion for the farmer that is being used widely. The 
federal government has also made extensive inves- 
tigations and experiments to determine the relative 
value of human foods. Yet much of this informa- 
tion is technical and tedious. It must be translated 
into language that can be understood by the average 
woman and incorporated into our proposed curricu- 
lum for the home-maker's training. 

The home-maker must understand how to make 
simple food palatable and attractive. "Cookery," 
said a seventeenth century writer, "is become an art, 
a noble science." No woman can realize the widest 
opportunities of cookery unless it is, to her, a science 
and an art. Few women will regard cookery in any 
other light than as plain drudgery unless they are 



152 LEARNING TO EARN 

trained to undertake it with a scientific spirit. If 
simple foods are to be made palatable, serving must 
be attractive. The housewife must be possessed of 
a keen artistic sense if serving is to add anything to 
the flavor of the food. 

Training for the home should include a thorough 
study of the origin and process of manufacture of 
all fabrics used in clothing, as well as a complete 
mastery of method of making practically all gar- 
ments. 

Cotton is the commonest and cheapest of the tex- 
tile fabrics. Its history, the sources and volume of 
supply, cost of production in various stages, nature 
of cultivation, by-products and their use, its process 
of manufacture, dyeing and uses for various pur- 
poses, are typical of the study that may be made of 
the other standard fabrics, wool, linen and silk. 
"Weighing silk," by dipping the yarn in bichloride 
of tin before dyeing, is a process that every woman 
should be able to detect in the finished product be- 
cause silk that has been subjected to this process is 
practically worthless. Frauds in labeling are com- 
mon and women should understand their legal rights 
under the label laws. 

Not only is it possible to have cheaper garments 
from home sewing, but they are certain to be more 
durable because a larger investment in material is 
possible and more attractive if made by trained 
hands. Moreover, there will be a smaller market 



TRAINING FOR THE HOME 153 

for the shoddy product of the tenement shops, a re- 
sult which is socially desirable. The sewing-machine 
is a great labor-saving device and its operation 
simple enough to be thoroughly mastered by the girl 
in the public schools. Drafting patterns, cutting and 
fitting are separate arts which may easily be taught 
in the public schools. 

At some time in their lives girls have a keen inter- 
est in embroidery. The art is a very old one, primi- 
tive people having used the needle in this way. 
Girls should acquire a knowledge of the history of 
embroidery and be taught all the modern stitches. 

Naturally, girls have an active and abiding inter- 
est in styles and fashions. Few know anything 
about the history of styles — that there is really noth- 
ing new in dress ; that one year offers merely a repe- 
tition of something that has gone before, with slight 
modifications. Girls will be keenly interested in the 
story of present-day style making. If they really 
knew more about the source of styles, to which the 
sex is said to be a slave, perhaps there would be 
more creative and less imitative tendencies among 
women. 

The woman is the chief purchaser of clothing in 
the home and upon her rests the responsibility of 
making the dollar buy as much as it will. Foolish 
expenditures in clothing are due principally to 
ignorance. 

Construction and care of the building in which 



154 LEARNING TO EARN 

the family is housed are worthy of special attention 
in any plan of training for the home. In city or 
country we see about us everywhere examples of 
architecture that are impractical, offensive to the 
eye or wholly out of harmony with their surround- 
ings. In the first place, the house should be con- 
structed for the convenience of the persons who are 
going to live in it, and within the financial limita- 
tions of the builder. Styles of architecture and ar- 
rangement of interior necessarily will vary as be- 
tween city and country and as between different 
sections of the same city. Young women should 
know something about the history of architecture 
and the rudiments of building for different purposes 
and at varying costs. It will seldom be necessary 
to sacrifice beauty for convenience, and women who 
are to have the care of a house should acquire the 
facility of joining utility and beauty in planning for 
house building. 

The selection of building material, plumbing fix- 
tures, labor-saving equipment, especially for the 
kitchen, and the ingredients of paint properly con- 
cern the wife. Left to the husband, these things 
are likely to depend upon the snap judgment of a 
multitude of dealers whose object is to give the 
least for the most money. 

When young women are taught more about rela- 
tive values of house furnishings, there will be a far 
more restricted market for the car-loads of cheap 



TRAINING FOR THE HOME 155 

furniture sold one year and fallen to pieces the next. 
This is true of all house furnishings, but especially 
so of furniture. People with modest incomes should 
no more spend their money for unsubstantial furni- 
ture than any other class of people. It is false 
economy to make investments of this sort. 

Home furnishings express as much as anything 
else the taste of the individual. There is little place 
for gilt chairs in the modest home. Pieces of plain 
lines or of soft willow will conform more nearly to 
the general atmosphere of the cottage and likewise 
be more durable where durability is an important 
factor. Curtains of plain pongee, scrim or simple 
muslin, printed in various bright colors, for many 
purposes are more desirable than clumsy lace, not 
only because they cost less, but because they appear 
to better advantage. There is a wide range of 
material at varying costs from which furnishings 
for the house may be selected and, at the same time, 
a definite scheme of harmony and beauty preserved. 
Selection of wall paper, for instance, is not so much 
a matter of cost as it is of taste, one of consideration 
for lights and shadows. Woodwork can be made to 
harmonize with the color scheme of each room and 
enhance rather than mar its beauty. Practical ex- 
perience, gained in the school, in choosing colors, 
shades and tints, will do much to improve the cheer- 
fulness of the home. Pictures may mar the beauty 
of an otherwise attractive room. Certain subjects 



156 LEARNING TO EARN 

are adaptable to certain rooms and good prints are 
now so inexpensive that ignorance is the only re- 
maining excuse for bad taste in choosing pictures. 
Rugs are generally preferable to carpets because 
they are easily taken up and cleaned. Inexpensive 
rag rugs of good design may look very pretty and 
they are preferable to the cheaper grades of carpet 
for most purposes if cost is an important item. 

Sanitation is not so much a question of expendi- 
tures as it is one of ideas. The woman who has 
fixed notions of sanitation will prefer rugs to car- 
pets unless she is able to clean her carpets frequently. 
In planning the house, the trained home-maker 
will provide for adequate lighting and ventilation. 
In the country there must be special provision 
for disposing of garbage, refuse and waste. 
Many inexpensive systems are offered. The young 
woman should know what they are and their rela- 
tive cost. Private waterworks and lighting systems 
are fast coming into general use in the country and 
their cost is less and less prohibitive. They make 
the problem of rural sanitation more simple than 
ever. 

Girls in the public schools, both in city and coun- 
try, may be taught the planning and care of the 
garden, the preparation of hotbeds and the prep- 
aration of common vegetables for the table. Great 
saving in expenditures for vegetables may be real- 
ized from very small plots of ground and women 



TRAINING FOR THE HOME 157 

are likely to grow many vegetables for home con- 
sumption if their interest in the garden is aroused 
early in life. Their education, in this respect, will 
be similar to that of the young farmer for agricul- 
ture. They must know the life history of all com- 
mon vegetables, how to protect them from common 
pests, how to prepare and cultivate the soil, artistic 
arrangement of vegetable beds and when to begin 
to cut or pull the vegetables for use. Perhaps young 
women will never find it necessary to perform any 
of the labor connected with a vegetable garden, but 
they will have the responsibility of supervision in 
any event. 

Likewise, young women may add greatly tathe 
attractiveness of the home surroundings if they 
have a live interest in flowers, trees and shrubs. A 
few young women will have a native interest in 
these forms of natural beauty, but the majority 
must acquire it. The maintenance of an experi- 
mental school garden with a brief study of schemes 
for planning will widen the popular interest in 
beauty for beauty's sake. 

Marketing has become an important element in 
the prosperity of the home. We have a clumsy sys- 
tem of bringing the producer and consumer together 
and until radical changes are made in the system by 
which unnecessary middlemen's profits are elimi- 
nated, the housewife who is a trained buyer and 
who understands the relative cost of the different 



158 LEARNING TO EARN 

items that enter into final values, will be able to get 
two or three times as much for the same money as 
the untrained and indifferent buyer. Necessarily, 
marketing has to do with the selling of everything 
produced in the home as well as everything con- 
sumed there. 

From three-fourths to four-fifths of the family 
income, according to Scott Nearing, is spent for 
food, clothing, fuel and light, recreation, health and 
sundry minor items, all of which expenditures are 
usually made by the wife. The importance of skil- 
ful buying is obvious. Nearing estimates that there 
is a minimum of ten million families in the United 
States depending largely upon the income of some 
industry other than agriculture and producing little 
or nothing for home consumption. These ten million 
families, he concludes, at six hundred dollars a year, 
spend annually six billion dollars, which is an ap- 
proximate estimate of the annual buying power of 
women, throwing the magnitude of marketing into 
the foreground. 

In training for the home, the public schools 
should work out the unit cost of delivery systems, 
set forth the legal aspects of weights and measures, 
show the relative cost of commodities in large and 
small quantities, present the advantages of cooper- 
ative buying, and emphasize the importance of the 
budget system for household expenditures. Market- 



TRAINING FOR THE HOME 159 

ing belongs in any complete course of training for 
the home. 

Nothing is more vital to the perpetuity of the 
family and the happiness of the home than the 
healthful and normal development of the young. 
Yet few mothers know very much about the scien- 
tific care of infants. The high mortality rate of in- 
fants can be traced directly to the ignorance of their 
mothers. Young wives have to depend, for all the 
information available about babies, upon their moth- 
ers and friends. As a source of information, this is 
both unreliable and inadequate. If a skilled nurse 
can not be employed, the baby frequently dies as a 
consequence of misinformation or no information. 

Certainly, young women who expect to become 
mothers have a native interest in preparing for 
motherhood equal to that which leads them into the 
formulae of higher mathematics and the forms of 
French verbs, and, as Herbert Spencer says : "When 
a mother is mourning over a first-born that has sunk 
under the sequelae of scarlet- fever — when perhaps a 
candid medical man has confirmed her suspicion 
that the child would have recovered had not its sys- 
tem been enfeebled by over study — when she is 
prostrate under the pangs of combined grief and 
remorse; it is but a small consolation that she can 
read Dante in the original." 

Young women should be taught what food in- 



160 LEARNING TO EARN 

fants require and how to prepare their clothing. The 
first year of the child's Hfe is the most critical as far 
as its health is concerned and its feeding requires 
especial care and consideration during this period. 
The alimentary canal is a source of most infant ills 
and if the mother knows how to keep it in good con- 
dition, little trouble of another nature may be ex- 
pected; at least, during the first year of the child's 
life. Fresh air is important to infants and the popu- 
lar notion that cold air is harmful to babies is er- 
roneous. It is one of the many erroneous notions 
about the care of babies. Mothers should know 
enough to look after the infant's teeth, the nasal pas- 
sages and the cultivation of proper habits of breath- 
ing. Many children grow up with deformed teeth 
and mouths because their mothers did not know 
how "baby" teeth should be cared for to preserve 
the contour of the gums for the normal growth of 
permanent teeth. 

The common remedies for the commonest of 
children's ills, the mother should always have on 
hand and be able to use intelligently. Young mothers 
will be saved much unnecessary worry if they are 
familiar with child psychology, which might be a 
part of any comprehensive course of training for 
the home. 

Wives and mothers should be trained to admin- 
ister first aid to the sick and injured and be familiar 
with the essential equipment for extending this aid. 
A brief course having to do with common remedies, 



TRAINING FOR THE HOME 161 

antiseptics, liniments and gargles and the treatment 
of common ills can easily be given in the vocational 
schools. 

It may be said that the proposed scheme of train- 
ing for the home as outlined in this chapter will tend 
to make the life of the wife and mother a round 
of dreary monotony, a life in which her very being 
is submerged, a life in which she fails to find expres- 
sion for natural instincts and emotions. Not at all ! 
Such training will have precisely opposite effects. 
The life of the wife and mother tends to become 
a round of dreary monotony because she knows 
nothing about the science of what she is trying to 
do. She seeks expression for active impulses out- 
side the home because those impulses have been di- 
verted from the home by a *'hocus-pocus" educa- 
tional process which gave her a smattering of the 
learning that used to be housed in monasteries and 
might still be, as far as the interests of the home 
are concerned. 

With no desire to assail the activity of women in 
the so-called "wider sphere," voluntary societies and 
organizations for the amelioration of this evil and 
that wrong, literary, art and scientific clubs, it seems 
quite certain that this activity is the forced expres- 
sion of erroneous training in the public schools, 
rather than the expression of natural impulses. 

A multitude of responsibilities patent to the home 
are apt to be regarded as drudgery merely because 



162 LEARNING TO EARN 

they are performed in that spirit. Education can 
correct this erroneous spirit. Education and train- 
ing for the home will lighten the home-maker's bur-- 
den because they will add new angles of interest to 
each and every task the home presents. The selec- 
tion and preparation of food, selection of fabrics 
and the making of clothing, construction, furnishing 
and care of the house, and marketing, may be un- 
dertaken either with the machine-like, monotonous 
point of view of so much time required for so much 
exacting labor, or, they may be anticipated with the 
zest of the scientist who is seeking some new econ- 
omy of operation, some new expression of beauty, 
some new form of perfection. Training for the 
home is expected to develop and establish this latter 
point of view. 

Music not only offers a pleasant vocational oppor- 
tunity to women who have a talent for it, but it 
ought to have a place in scientific education, for 
modern home-making depending largely upon indi- 
vidual tastes and talents. Public school music has 
wasted too much effort on children without musical 
ability. Home education may well avoid this waste 
by proper selection. 

Training for the home, as a necessary function of 
our system of public education, may be summed up 
in the language of the Federal Commission on Vo- 
cational Education: "Preparation for the varied 
duties of the home should be regarded as a legiti- 



TRAINING FOR THE HOME 163 

mate, integral part of the education of every girl; 
that it should be given throughout the entire school 
course, both in elementary and in high schools ; and 
that it should be considered a necessary part of a 
girl's general preparation for life no matter what 
her particular calling might be." 

Above all, education for the home must avoid 
training for the kind of home in which people do 
not live, training for experiences girls never have. 
Altogether the program is a serious one and means 
infinitely more than a passing fad since it involves 
the normal development of the finest and greatest 
graces of womanhood as well as the comfort, happi- 
ness and security of family life in America. 



CHAPTER VIII 

VOCATIONAL EDUCATION AND CONSERVATION . 

The waste of resources — Direct losses — Indirect losses — Min- 
ing — Lumbering — Soils — Insect pests — Animal diseases — 
Weeds — Lack of drainage — Agricultural production too small 
— Export raw materials instead of finished products — Waste 
of human resources — Child wastage — Preventable diseases — 
Accidents in occupations — Diseases of occupations — Conserv- 
ing health and strength — Efficiency. 

The extent of preventable waste in the United 
States is appalling. The figures of the annual losses 
stagger the imagination. The losses due to failure 
to produce what we should each year adds to the 
enormous total and makes one wonder whether we 
are not in the realm of fiction. It is probable that 
the total preventable loss annually from all sources, 
direct and indirect, amounts to almost one-third of 
the entire value of the property of the country — or 
more than sixty billion dollars. 

We have been living in an age of exploitation. 
We have been wasting and allowing waste of our 
resources like drunken sailors. The policy of taking 
all that could be got without regard to wise use 
or without regard to the economy of the whole has 
been disastrous. We have ruined our soils and 
robbed them of their fertility in order that the ex- 

164 



EDUCATION AND CONSERVATION 165 

ploiters could gain the highest immediate return 
without putting anything back on the land. We have 
mined coal, iron and other minerals with criminal 
losses due to the greed of the exploiters; we would 
mine the best because there was the greatest profit 
at once, even though it meant the permanent loss of 
the less productive veins; we have permitted insect 
pests and diseases of plants and animals to take their 
toll of billions while the knowledge of prevention 
lies dormant; we have allowed a fire waste which 
is a disgrace to the nation because we have not com- 
pelled the application of extant knowledge and 
known practise to the art of building; we have al- 
lowed our farms and roadsides to fill witlt foul 
growth, a drain upon the soil and a hindrance to 
productive crops ; we are wasting hundreds of mil- 
lions of dollars through lack of education in the care 
of farm machinery; we waste other millions by the 
inability of our people to judge the value of their 
purchases in food, dress or furnishings; we waste 
one billion dollars through inefficient government;, 
we lose billions through preventable diseases, and 
we bring untold loss, pain and misery to the thou- 
sands who are needlessly killed and maimed in our 
industries every year or who suffer from preventa- 
ble diseases. 

At the same time, while these direct losses occur 
year after year, we indirectly lose many more bil- 
lions by failure to produce from the soil all that we 



166 LEARNING JO EARN 

should and from industry all that it is capable of in 
material things and human happiness. During 1914 
this country produced nine billion dollars' worth of 
farm crops. Under intelligent treatment there is no 
reason why, from the same soil, the amount should 
not have been twice as great. Millions are lost for 
lack of irrigation and other millions for lack of 
proper drainage. 

On the side of consumption we are equally waste- 
ful. Probably one-third of all expenditures for 
food, clothing and furnishings is an outright waste 
because of unsuitability or of ignorance in prepara- 
tion. Uneconomic expenditures — those which bring 
no permanent good — are enormous. The annual ex- 
penditure for intoxicating beverages, tobacco, chew- 
ing gum, fancy candies, soda-water and other soft 
drinks, and all the other useless expenditures to 
which our people are accustomed, amount to more 
than four billion dollars. The use of such articles 
is, partially at least, a result of the failure of society 
through the schools to train in habits of thrift and 
wise expenditure. 

The losses to this country from exporting raw 
materials to Europe to be sold back to us in the form 
of finished products of highly skilled workmanship, 
are perhaps our greatest economic losses. Mr. H. E. 
Miles, in a recent statement,^ said : "We export cot- 



^ Hearing before United States Commission on Vocational 
Education, Vol. 2, p. 270. 



EDUCATION AND CONSERVATION 167 

ton at fourteen cents a pound and buy it back in fine 
fabrics at forty dollars per pound; export steel at 
one and one- fourth cents and buy it back at from 
two dollars and a half to ten dollars per pound. We 
should make all these more artistic goods which we 
now import. There are one billion five hundred 
million consumers in the neutral markets of the 
world who buy crude stuffs from us in considerable 
amounts. They buy substantially all of their highly 
finished products from England, Germany and 
France." 

It is commonly stated that Germany adds four 
times as much labor value to goods as this country. 
This country in 1909 manufactured goods to* the 
value of twenty billion six hundred seventy-two mil- 
lion fifty-two thousand dollars, of which twelve bil- 
lion one hundred forty-one million seven hundred 
ninety-one thousand dollars was represented by raw 
materials and eight billion five hundred thirty mil- 
lion two hundred sixty-one thousand dollars the 
value added by manufacture. With skill equal to 
that of the Germans, twenty-four billion dollars 
might have been added to our manufactured goods. 

One of our greatest losses is in mining. Van Hise 
estimates^ that for every ton of bituminous coal 
mined, a half ton is wasted and for every ton of 
anthracite coal mined, a ton to a ton and one-half is 



^ Van Hise, The Conservation of Natural Resources in the 
United States, pp. 17-47. 



168 LEARNING TO EARN 



I 



wasted. This he declares could be reduced to twenty- 
five per cent, and even to ten per cent, by a proper 
system of mining. According to his figures nearly 
four billion tons were wasted prior to 1907. He 
further estimates that fifty million dollars are lost 
every year by the manufacture of coke in beehive 
ovens instead of retorts. On top of this loss comes 
the enormous waste caused by improper combustion. 
This loss has been estimated as high as five hundred 
million dollars annually, and it is a wholly needless 
loss. Methods are known by which coal may be al- 
most perfectly consumed. The amount wasted 
through ignorance of simple methods of furnace 
practise in the home or because of defective heating 
apparatus, is also a large factor in the waste of re- 
sources. Our smoke nuisance, with all of its attend- 
ant losses and discomforts, is a direct result of 
ignorance of simple furnace practise. Again the con- 
version of coal into heat and light through the steam 
engine gives only a small fraction, estimated at from 
one-fifth of one per cent, to one per cent, of the heat 
units of the coal. 

These great wastes take place with a natural 
resource which is itself limited in quantity and is be- 
ing rapidly consumed. The facts speak the impor- 
tance of some action to prevent wanton waste of 
such a resource. Some results can be accomplished by 
direct regulation by law, but far more lasting results 
will come through education which will bring about 



EDUCATION AND CONSERVATION 169 

methods of safe and economical mining; a more effi- 
cient furnace practise extending to every house- 
holder who stokes a furnace ; the development of the 
gas engine to take the place of the steam engine; the 
discovery and utilization of more efficient methods 
in the development of energy from coal; and finally 
the utilization of water power as a substitute for the 
heat energy of coal. Similar conclusions may be 
drawn in the case of iron, zinc, lead, petroleum and 
gas, all exhaustible resources which are being un- 
duly wasted in mining and utilization, together with 
the loss of by-products such as arsenic and sulphur 
which are allowed to go to waste. 

The questions which education must answer are : 
How can waste be prevented in mining and handling 
mine products? How can mine products be used 
with the greatest efficiency? What cheap substitutes 
may be used in place of the rare and exhaustible 
resources? These problems of conservation may be 
solved by an intelligent application of knowledge al- 
ready widely and successfully applied, but informa- 
tion about these things must be generally diffused 
among the men who manage small as well as great 
enterprises and among the men who do the simpler 
tasks as well as those who manage the larger affairs. 
Education for efficiency all along the line is essen- 
tial if conservation is to become something besides a 
name. 

Turning now to forests and wood products we 



170 LEARNING TO EARN 

find an equally enormous waste because of the lack 
of intelligent application of knowledge. Forests 
have been wantonly destroyed with no regard for the 
future of forest growth or of the preservation of 
the soil. Aside from the wholesale cutting of tim- 
ber, a loss of fully twenty-five per cent, is sustained 
by careless and ignorant cutting, by destruction of 
young growth and by use of immature trees and 
lumber. Louis Margolin estimates that about fifty 
per cent, of the timber is wasted in milling, some of 
the items of loss being bark, thirteen per cent. ; saw- 
dust, thirteen and five-tenths per cent. ; slabs, eight 
and seventy-nine hundredths per cent. ; carelessness, 
three and five-tenths per cent. ; necessities of stand- 
ard lengths, one and seven-tenths per cent.^ Much 
of this waste could readily be prevented if attention 
were actively directed through educational means to 
the economic losses sustained and if men were 
trained efficiently to do their work. 

In addition to these losses come even greater ones 
in the lack of intelligent utilization of wood prod- 
ucts. The science of seasoning woods and of the 
use of preservatives is not applied extensively. 
Again, the lack of proper manufacture or of adapta- 
tion to use is responsible for the loss of hundreds of 
millions of feet of lumber, while the use of wood 
for cheap furniture made by automatic machinery 



_ * Louis Margolin, "Waste In Milling," National Conserva- 
tion Committee Report, Vol. II, pp. 547-580. 



EDUCATION AND CONSERVATION 171 

and merely stuck together is one of the most shame- 
ful wastes since it falls most heavily on the poor 
who purchase it. 

Finally, there is the waste of by-products such as 
tar, turpentine and wood alcohol. Taking all of these 
facts into consideration, the loss in the utilization 
of wood products far exceeds the amount which is 
utilized. Add to the losses about fifty million dollars 
annually from forest fires and the value of more 
than twenty-five billion feet of timber which might 
be saved if proper care were given, and the total 
positive and negative losses reach the enormous to- 
tal of more than three billion dollars annually. 

The soil is our most precious possession, devel- 
oped as it has been by a process extending 
through a million years. To rob it of its properties 
or to allow it to be carried away by erosion is a 
crime against posterity. It is ignorance of the gross- 
est kind when we permit soil destruction, for by 
the simplest methods both erosion and depletion can 
be prevented. 

Proper selection and rotation of crops restore 
many of the elements to the soil; other elements are 
available in quantities to place upon the land; and 
others by utilizing the available fertilizers of the 
farm. Soil study for purposes of conservation is a 
scientific study of the best sort and brings rich mate- 
rial rewards. 

Likewise the application of knowledge to the 



172 LEARNING TO EARN 

problem of erosion brings practical results. By 
simple methods of water control, deep tillage, 
contour plowing, terrace building, forest retention 
and protection of fallow lands the greater part of 
the soil which is constantly being carried away, will 
be saved. The knowledge exists, but it is not gener- 
ally diffused among those who should have it and 
employ it. 

Turning to the enemies of the farm we find that 
insect pests alone in one year, according to an esti- 
mate of C. L. Marlott in the Reports of the Conser- 
vation Commission,^ caused a damage of fully six 
hundred and fifty million dollars, while the damage 
done by burrowing animals exceeded one hundred 
million dollars. The amount of damage caused by 
plant diseases has never been calculated. Mr. R. A. 
Moore, in a bulletin of the University of Wisconsin, 
estimated that the loss caused by smut in oats in 
Wisconsin alone was about four million five hundred 
thousand dollars annually. If this loss prevailed in 
other states in the same proportion the total loss 
from this disease in oats alone would be upward of 
fifty-four million dollars. This disease is easily pre- 
ventable by soaking seed grain in formaldehyde so- 
lution. Yet how many farmers know this and how 
many know how to put their knowledge into prac- 
tise? Other more persistent diseases are common 
such as rust, and all of the energies of the best scien- 



*Vol. Ill, pp. 301-309. 



EDUCATION AND CONSERVATION 173 

tific and practical minds should be bent on discover- 
ing how to prevent them and equally great energies 
should be spent in diffusing the knowledge among 
all men so that the knowledge may be put to work 
to play its part. 

The loss from weeds reaches an estimated total 
of five hundred million dollars annually. Weeds are 
useless in that they contribute nothing to human wel- 
fare: are injurious in that they consume water and 
plant food; are noxious in that they choke useful 
plants and are malignant because by better constitu- 
tions and greater persistency they dispossess the or- 
dinary cultivated plants.^ 

Our lands are overrun with all sorts of weeds and 
our highways are lanes of malignant growth which 
spread rapidly to the fields. Again, the application 
of knowledge already in existence will lessen if not 
prevent the ravages of these pests. Nearly every 
weed pest is preventable or eradicable, but the prob- 
lem is to get the knowledge of how to do it into the 
service of every man on the farm. 

Still continuing this catalog of losses from farm 
enemies we come to the loss from animal diseases 
which probably is in excess of five hundred million 
dollars. Much of this loss is preventable by existent 
knowledge. But such losses can not be controlled by 
knowledge in the possession of the few; they can be 



^ U. S. Bureau of Soils, Soil Erosion, by W. J. McGee. Bul- 
letin No. 71. 



174 LEARNING TO EARN 

controlled only when practical knowledge of their 
prevention is universal among farmers. 

Besides the positive losses in agriculture so far 
mentioned there is the enormous losses due to in- 
efficiency in practise whereby we produce fourteen 
bushels of wheat per acre instead of thirty; thirty- 
four bushels of corn when it should be sixty to one 
hundred; ninety bushels of potatoes instead of two 
hundred, and other crops in proportion. The soils 
of European countries which have been cropped for 
a thousand years bear out the expectation that simi- 
lar results should be expected on our almost virgin 
soil. 

Important among the indirect losses which we 
suffer may be mentioned that from our failure prop- 
erly to drain the land. Seventy-seven million acres 
of virgin soil of great richness could be added to our 
productive area by easily constructed systems of 
drainage and the wide-spread application of drain- 
age to the farms. If the area which could be easily 
drained were drained it is estimated that two billion 
eight hundred forty-nine million dollars would be 
added to the wealth of the country, and, at ten dol- 
lars per acre, seven hundred seventy million dollars 
would be added annually to the nation's product. 
All this does not take account of the millions of acres 
which are improperly drained and which, in conse- 
quence, are producing only part of what they should. 
Fully one hundred and fifty million acres do not 



EDUCATION AND CONSERVATION 175 

produce within twenty per cent, of what they should 
because of insufficient drainage entaihng a loss of 
two billion dollars. The results obtained in many 
states where marked beginnings have been made 
prove the economic results of drainage. Missouri 
alone has added ninety million dollars of taxable 
property to her lists in the last twenty years by 
drainage. 

Too much importance can not be attached to edu- 
cation in this problem. Drainage is not a mere mat- 
ter of knowledge for the drainage engineer. Com- 
prehensive results can only be obtained when every 
acre of wet land receives the proper drainage and 
soil treatment. Every farmer having wet land^needs 
to have a practical working knowledge of the prac- 
tise of drainage. 

Thus far we have considered the tangible losses 
in material things — the waste of the visible natural 
resources. Prodigal as we have been with those, we 
have been still more prodigal in the waste of human 
beings and in the destruction of human resources. 
Man is held as our cheapest asset probably because 
his value can not be measured in dollars and cents. 
Money is voted freely by legislatures and congress 
to fight hog cholera, while almost in the same breath 
measures to protect human beings are voted down. 
Let us see what are some of the human losses. 

Our most disastrous human loss is to be 
found in our waste of childhood. Hundreds of thou- 



176 LEARNING TO EARN 

sands of children die in infancy each year through 
sheer lack of education in their care and other thou- 
sands grow up with weakened vitality and physical 
powers from the same cause. Little children are per- 
mitted to wear out their bodies and kill their souls 
in wearisome toil in the factories and sweatshops be- 
cause we have not assumed complete charge of the 
guidance and protection of all youth until their phys- 
ical powers are developed. 

Professor Irving Fisher® estimates that there are 
six hundred and thirty thousand preventable deaths 
every year representing an annual waste of one bil- 
lion dollars. He further estimates that there are al- 
ways three million persons in the United States on 
the sick list, about seven hundred and fifty thousand 
of whom are actually workers. The aggregate loss is 
about fiYQ hundred million dollars. Adding to this an- 
other five hundred million dollars as the expense of 
medicines and we have a total of one billion dollars, 
one-half of which is preventable. In this coun- 
try from twenty-five thousand to thirty-five thou- 
sand men are killed and probably half a million in- 
jured in industrial accidents, while scarcely a school 
or college in the country is making any serious ef- 
fort to train men to prevent accidents. Legislation 
is enacted to compel safety devices and men are not 
educated to use them. Industrial accidents are pe- 
culiarly due to lack of industrial education in sim- 



' National Qonservation Commission, Vol. Ill, pp. 620-751. 



EDUCATION AND CONSERVATION 177 

pie accident prevention. Men can not be protected 
in industry unless they are taught to protect them- 
selves. Although most industrial accidents are pre- 
ventable their occurrence increases. 

Diseases of occupation claim their toll outright by 
hundreds of thousands and leave their works of dis- 
tress on weakened bodies of many hundreds of other 
thousands of workers. Yet until less than a half dec- 
ade ago no serious study of causes and remedies was 
made and prevention was attempted only in the most 
aggravated cases, such as the effort made to pre- 
vent the manufacture of phosphorus matches — the 
breeder of the awful disease, "phossy jaw.'* Even 
that was not finally prohibited until 1912. When the 
American Association for Labor Legislation called 
the first national conference on industrial diseases 
in June, 1910, it was possible to mention only one 
attempt to study occupational diseases and to note 
the completion of an investigation of only one in- 
dustrial poison. That practically marked the extent 
of serious public interest in occupational diseases 
and the first conference attracted attention to this 
as to a new problem. Now we are beginning to real- 
ize the dangers in many occupations and our duty 
has been made clear. Men have a right to work in 
safe and healthful surroundings, yet legislative and 
administrative fiat can not secure wholesome condi- 
tions for all men unless all men are educated in the 
prevention of industrial accidents and disease. Un- 



178 LEARNING TO EARN 

told millions have been wasted by industrial diseases 
and human pain and misery have been incalculable. 
The principal causes of industrial diseases are 
fourfold. First, harmful substances such as metal 
poison, gases, fluids, dust, organic germs and irri- 
tants. For the reason that no method of prevention 
has been applied, thousands of workers take into 
their systems each day many of these harmful sub- 
stances, causing both temporary and permanent 
losses. A second cause arises in harmful conditions 
of environment, such as excessive temperatures, 
humidity, air pressure and light. A third group 
comprises injuries due to occupational strain from 
excessive work, constant application and to the posi- 
tions assumed while at work ; the fourth cause arises 
from the effect of certain materials on special organs 
such as the eyes, ears, skin, nose and throat. 

"The problem," says Frederick L. Hoffman, "is 
one of ignorance rather than of neglect. Most of the 
factors which condition health and safety in indus- 
try are as yet very imperfectly understood, at least 
in the United States. We have not as yet learned in 
this country the function of the safety engineer. The 
function of the ventilating engineer in relation to in- 
dustrial requirements is practically new and almost 
the same may be said of the illuminating engineer." 

To offset these causes requires universal educa- 
tion of the workers in self -protection and stringent 



EDUCATION AND CONSERVATION 179 

legislation to compel the best possible conditions 
under which to work. 

More broadly must the question of bodily strength 
be studied and human life thereby safeguarded. The 
first duty of vocational education is to train in self- 
preservation. The worker of every grade should 
know the dangers which beset him and know how to 
offset them. Longer lives, more vigorous bodies and 
general efficiency result. There is plenty of room 
for improvement. The average length of life can 
be largely increased. Such increase has been taking 
place for the last century due to enlarging knowl- 
edge. What the length of life may become is merely 
a matter of conjecture, but if it reaches merely the 
average attained in Sweden of over fifty-two years, 
it will mean the adding of several years of product- 
iveness to the whole people. 

In broad vocational education will be found one 
of the chief methods of conserving health and length- 
ening life. A proper training for a life work carries 
with it a training in the conditions which affect the 
health and safety of the workers. Of fundamental 
importance is the training which analyzes the dan- 
gers to health, the occurrence of accidents, and 
teaches the methods of eliminating one and avoiding 
the other. But of almost equal importance is the edu- 
cation which teaches how to do things efficiently with 
the least amount of human effort. Many men put 
great effort in doing things which an intelligent ap- 



180 LEARNING TO EARN 

plication of efficiency methods would make unneces- 
sary. Human energy is thus wasted in useless things. 
The man with the shovel puts more effort into his 
work than he should because he is seldom taught 
how to use his strength to the best effect. He does 
not know the efficiency possibilities of the tools with 
which he works, and his shovel may be poorly 
adapted to the handling of the material upon which 
he is working. An adjustment of the size of the tool 
to the character of materials handled is the first prin- 
ciple of efficiency in this field, and every man who 
works should be taught that principle and how to 
apply it in varied practise. Of equal importance is 
the condition in which tools are kept. Strength is 
wasted in trying to work with dull saws, chisels, 
shovels or hoes, yet few men are trained to over- 
come their difficulties even of the simplest character 
and work on without knowing the cause of small ac- 
complishments from hard labor. 

The science of position while at work has become 
such an important matter to the health and strength 
of workers that the recently formed American Pos- 
ture League is devoting its entire energies to a study 
of the effects of the position assumed by workers 
while working, looking toward the end of training 
for health, safety and efficiency. 

The problem of vocational education as it relates 
to conservation, should comprehend the broadest ef- 
forts for human welfare. All of our efforts to pro- 



EDUCATION AND CONSERVATION 181 

duce more and to conserve the fruits of production 
should be directed to the one end of human happi- 
ness and the distribution of well-being to the broad- 
est extent. In order that production may rise through 
efficient methods, waste be prevented, human effort 
be made to produce the most with the least energy, 
and the widest distribution of the fruits of produc- 
tion be possible, there will need to be universal edu- 
cation of all people in every walk of life in order 
that they may produce more, conserve more and 
enjoy more. 



CHAPTER IX 

PREVOCATIONAL TRAINING 

Elementary education most important — Acquiring tools of 
knowledge — Education should function in daily life — Child 
who does not keep up is not abnormal, only different — Cor- 
relation of studies — Elements of more things should be util- 
ized — Practical arts should be compulsory to all — Wasted 
years from fourteen to sixteen — Prevocational courses to fill 
the gap — Not only vocational but also guidance courses to be 
given. 

Thus far in this volume we have tried to focus 
attention upon the needs of the masses of workers 
in useful employments, and to point out wherein so- 
ciety fails to meet them through the present educa- 
tional system. We shall now attempt to set forth a 
scheme of education which will at least offer the op- 
portunity to all individuals to adjust themselves to 
their environment and to make such readjustments 
as social and economic progress may require or in- 
dividual ambition may seek. 

The foundations of such a scheme are laid in the 
elementary schools and we shall first address our- 
selves to a discussion of the scope and purpose of ele- 
mentary and prevocational education covering the 
period from six to sixteen years of age. It is gen- 
erally accepted that this period of a child's life 

182 



PREVOCATIONAL TRAINING 183 

should be directed to education of such a character 
as will put him in possession of the tools of knowl- 
edge, give him a sympathetic attitude toward his en- 
vironment and develop sound habits of study and 
moral action. It is coming to be recognized that a 
fourth purpose should be added, namely, to give vo- 
cational direction. Compulsory education laws set 
aside the years from eight to fourteen for school 
work by compelling children to go to school during 
the time the school is in session. Having thus forci- 
bly assumed the burden of the educational guidance 
of youth, it becomes a solemn obligation of the state 
to see that the education forced upon the child is of 
such a kind as will be suited to the welfare of fech 
and every individual. Obviously it is unjust to force 
upon any one, old or young, an education unfitted to 
his capacity and unsuited to his needs, and from 
which he can not profit. Such education is neither 
individually nor socially efficient. 

At present, a large proportion of youth leave 
school at or before fourteen years of age, and their 
further education ceases. Much of this defection is 
due to the failure of the school to reach the children 
in such a way as to make education function in their 
daily lives. "I hate school" is a common expression 
and unhappily the expression is translated into ac- 
tion about as soon as the law allows. A few who 
seem to have the power of learning the things of the 
book, are counted successful, are praised by their 



184 LEARNING TO EARN 

teachers, advanced from grade to grade, and grad- 
uated finally amid the approval of their friends. To 
them, education has appealed, because they were suc- 
cessful. Whether it was real efficient education mat- 
ters not. Probably in most cases it has functioned 
with the real life of the child no more snugly than it 
did with the life of the child who hated it, but it was 
more easily grasped as an abstraction. The child 
who left school along the way, humiliated or perhaps 
disgraced, may have had the potential power for 
splendid progress in a different course of study or 
under a more practical method of teaching. It should 
be emphasized that it is the duty of society to make 
its educational service a reality to all the children 
and not a sifting process by which the ones with par- 
ticular powers are separated from the mass and are 
given advantages In their lines which are denied to 
others who have other powers. 

In organizing the schools for the elementary 
period of education from six to fourteen, some defi- 
nitely known facts must be kept In mind. First, that 
at present the great mass of children drop out of 
school at the earliest possible moment; second, that 
little effective service has been done by the school for 
these children to give power to protect themselves, 
to earn a living, to act the part of efficient citizens, or 
home-makers, or to appreciate the higher things of 
life; third, that these powers are less effectively im- 
parted to those whom we are able to retain In school 



PREVOCATIONAL TRAINING 185 

to the higher grades than they should be; fourth, 
that the great mass of our youth will permanently 
earn their living with their hands and derive their 
appreciations from modest surroundings. These facts 
suggest the problem — How to keep the child in 
school until at least effective rudiments of a real edu- 
cation are imparted ; how to give possession to every 
child of the tools of knowledge; how to make edu- 
cation function with the every-day life of all the 
children ; and lastly, how so to organize our plan that 
while giving the elements of a real education to 
every one, the inspiration to the highest mental at- 
tainments of the few may not be weakened. 

It is apparent that the first duty of the educational 
authorities is to analyze the causes for the abnormal 
defection from school in the early years. Something 
is decidedly wrong when such a condition exists. The 
main reason is not far to seek. It is found in the rigid 
course of study which takes little account of the dif- 
ferent interests and aptitudes of the children and 
seeks to impose one set of "things of the mind." 
Each child responds to a particular motive for study 
and as nearly as possible that motive should be dis- 
covered and utilized. We see many examples of the 
enthusiasm with which those few students work 
whose motives for study coincide with the work of 
the school. We must give to all a similar enthusiasm 
by a wider utilization of motives. 

Educators need to recognize that a child is not ab- 



186 LEARNING TO EARN 



normal because he does not keep pace with the book 
education. Rather it is the child who does keep pace 
that is abnormal. As expressed by Arthur D. Dean : 

"The child who can make his grades year by year 
without stumbling; who can successfully cover a 
course of study unrelated to his experience and apart 
from his environment ; who can be trained by mem- 
orizing the other fellow's doings, is after all a most 
unusual and even abnormal child. It is a natural 
heritage of the race to make things, to grow things, 
to live with living things. Contact with nature 
should be expressed in the educative process of all 
children. The progressive believes that the child 
who can go to school, study from books alone, shut 
his eyes to all but the printed page, and his ears to 
all but the voice of the teacher is as abnormal a 
creature as any of the freaks which we pay admis- 
sion to see, and the worst of it is the better he does 
these things the more truly unusual and abnormal 
he is."' 

In the elementary schools the first object should 
be to give possession of the tools of knowledge. Ev- 
ery child needs to learn to read, write, cipher and 
compose ; not however, as ends in themselves, but as 
means to real education. These are fundamental vo- 
cational studies. They relate to the necessities of 
daily life. Progress can not be made without them 
and by some means or other, children must be kept 



^ Arthur D. Dean, The Progressive Element in Education, 
Address, Alfred University, 1913. 



PREVOCATIONAL TRAINING 187 

in school long enough to make these subjects a part 
of their very being. 

The right handling of these subjects will prove 
one of the means of overcoming some of the indif- 
ference of children toward school. These subjects 
can all be so woven into the child's life that his in- 
terest will be quickened and instead of dead un- 
meaning sentences in reading, hard problems in fig- 
ures, measured expression in writing or stereotyped 
composition, there will be a vivifying motive for 
study and an inspirational result. Throughout the 
years of the elementary school these studies, rightly 
conducted, give the child the life interest which he 
needs and a wide range of vocational knowledge. 
Through reading, the child can be put into harmon- 
ious relation with his surroundings. For this pur- 
pose, reading should be socialized. That which the 
child reads should be such as he can connect with his 
own experience. It should be less about kings, war- 
riors, statesmen or politicians, and more about the 
simple processes of peaceful life and industry. Bi- 
ography offers much for reading, but it should be 
treated in a broad way. The biography of simple 
virtue has in it as much of human interest as the 
biography of glamour. The biography of successful 
farmers, home-makers, mechanics, electricians, car- 
penters, and the inspiration of their rise should be 
given prominence. The biographies of great men 
ought to take account of their quiet virtues and 



188 LEARNING TO EARN 

works. Washington and Jefferson as farmers or 
Franklin as an electrician are too often forgotten by 
their political biographers. 

Reading, composition and arithmetic offer endless 
chances to make the school function with life. These 
subjects which are now formal and barren may be 
made rich with educational, vocational and civic in- 
terests. Through them the children may develop 
sound habits of thought and a sympathetic relation 
with their environment and wide vocational inter- 
ests. Mathematics also furnishes the possibilities of 
a by-product in vocational and civic results, which 
are all too little utilized. Problems drawn from ex- 
periences with things will give a working knowledge 
about the farm, shop, or home, measurements of 
lands, composition of fertilizers or feeding stuff, 
and the many operations on the farm. These offer a 
field for practical application of mathematics which 
will give vocational direction and practical power. 
Likewise the working out of the designs in the shop 
or the problems of the home, offers a laboratory in 
which a practical meaning is furnished for every 
problem. Surely nothing is lost when these ends are 
attained. 

As an instrument for the teaching of civics, 
mathematics is equally efificient. Let the teacher draw 
her problems from the administration of the town, 
township, county, city, state and nation and while 



PREVOCATIONAL TRAINING 189 

teaching the use of figures, actually teach the pupils 
to use them as they are used in every-day life. Let 
the pupils determine the assessment roll and tax 
rates, the cost of government and the balance sheet. 
Let them work out problems which daily trouble the 
public officials, thus making the lessons a review of 
current affairs. If this results only in some original 
thinking and discovery of new problems by the 
pupils, its chief end will be attained. 

What has been said concerning reading and arith- 
metic applies equally to composition. The pupils 
ought to write about things which have for them a 
living interest. They should, therefore, find their 
subjects in their experience. Composition will hWe 
fewer terrors when the children tell in their own 
simple language about real things which they have 
seen and experienced, instead of trying to draw their 
subjects from the realms of fancy and their descrip- 
tions from other persons' mouths. Descriptions of 
animals, plants, implements and simple processes 
which they know about, promote originality and en- 
courage clear thinking. 

The period of the child's life here under discus- 
sion, being devoted to general education and being 
the only preparation for life which thousands of our 
youth will have, should cover the essentials which 
are necessary to bring the child into harmony with 
his environment by a general knowledge of the tools 



190 LEARNING TO EARN 

fey which further education may be acquired, and by 
acquainting the child with the data of his surround- 
ings. 

Throughout the period up to fourteen, the practi- 
cal arts should be woven into the work of the school 
for two reasons: first, that through them the data 
of education may be more effectively grasped, and 
second, because complete education means education 
of all the faculties of body and mind. From mere 
play exercises in the early grades, this work should 
increase in definiteness until in the upper grades it 
becomes well organized in manual training, domestic 
science or agriculture. In all cases, however, practi- 
cal arts should be utilized in the elementary school as 
a part of the general education of the young. They 
are not ends in themselves at this period, but rather 
means of developing the personality of the child; 
affording new means of expression; acquainting 
with every-day processes; promoting accuracy and 
a sounder notion of the dignity of work, and begin- 
ning vocational guidance. There will be, of course, 
a large by-product of vocational knowledge and skill 
developed, which may serve as the impetus for fur- 
ther training, but the emphasis should be upon it 
primarily as a factor in the complete education of 
youth. 

Clearness of reasoning, and sanity of discussion 
will be promoted if this purpose of practical arts 
teaching for children under fourteen is kept steadily 



J 



PREVOCATIONAL TRAINING 191 

in view. On the one hand, the violence with which 
certain people denounce practical studies will be tem- 
pered when their function as a means to general edu- 
cation is understood and, on the other hand, the criti- 
cism of those persons who look upon such work 
solely as a preparation for a vocation to fit children 
to earn a living will appear ridiculous. The failure 
to understand the true function of practical arts and 
properly to correlate manual training, domestic sci- 
ence and agricultural work with reading, writing, 
arithmetic and composition, has discredited these 
activities of the schools and left unrealized the pos- 
sibilities of practical arts as an ally of efficient, 
general and prevocational education. * 

Practical arts studies, rightly conducted, vitalize 
the school work, infuse new desires and induce 
greater interest in other subjects. Such studies 
should therefore be compulsory. They are designed 
for all pupils no matter what their prospects in life 
may be. To some they will mean the arousing of vo- 
cational inclinations; to others they will mean a 
wider sympathy with their economic and social en- 
vironment; for others they will serve as a "try-out" 
or vocational finding course. Whether a youth is to 
be a lawyer, physician or clergyman, or whether he is 
to go into the ranks of the factory or trade or farm 
workers, the practical arts can not fail to be helpful 
in his work. It will give as its best result a broader, 
more intelligent and sympathetic citizenship. 



192 LEARNING TO EARN 

What may be accomplished by a correlation of 
practical arts with the formal studies of the school 
is limited only by the originality of the teacher and 
pupils. Problems in percentage, interest, profit and 
loss, and measurements are made real and attractive 
to children when drawn from the things actually 
constructed by them, while composition loses its ter- 
rors when children describe the familiar work of 
their own hands. 

The extremely formal method of teaching which 
has generally prevailed is responsible for the narrow- 
ness of the educational curriculum. Subjects have 
been taught in compartments sealed tight to exclude 
a view of other subjects. Each is taught as an end in 
itself and not as a part of a coordinate whole, while 
the simplest elements of some vitally important 
subjects are entirely ignored. Processes in arith- 
metic which never will come within the range of a 
person's experience are diligently taught while the 
simplest elements of chemistry, biology and physics 
are never touched upon, although these elements cor- 
relate with every-day experiences, and offer a fund 
of educational data. Many subjects of elemental use 
to every person are themselves formalized and put 
into the curriculum in the same sealed compartment 
fashion, but usually at such a late period as to put 
them beyond the reach of the majority of youth who 
do not reach the advanced grades. 

The problem of elementary education is to broaden 



PREVOCATIONAL TRAINING 193 

its scope while limiting its extent. The solution 
lies in a complete revamping of the courses, and 
a rewriting of text-books so that the elements of 
many things which the student should learn will be 
grouped around the fundamentals. The course need 
not be lengthened. In fact, there is no reason why 
the fundamentals may not be imparted in six years, 
thus ending the elementary period at twelve. 

The Committee of the National Educational As- 
sociation on Economy of Time in Education^ de- 
clared strongly for a shorter course of elementary 
education and pointed the way to it. 

"The committee agree that there is much waste in 
elementary education, and that the elementary 
period should be from six to twelve. Nearly all of 
our correspondents are emphatic regarding waste 
and the importance of shortening the entire period 
of general education. Saving of time can be made 
in the following ways : 

"1. The principle of selection is first. Choose 
the most important subjects and the most important 
topics; make a distinction between first-rate facts 
and principles and tenth-rate; prune thoroughly, 
stick to the elements of a subject ; do not try to teach 
everything that is good; confine the period of ele- 
mentary education to mastering the tools of educa- 
tion. This does not prevent inspirational work, 
which is a demand on the skill of the teacher rather 
than on time. A great secret of education is to ac- 
complish a maximum of training with a minimum 
of material. This is especially true of formal sub- 



194 LEARNING TO EARN 

jects; it is true also of inspirational subjects in that 
after a general survey of the field, emphasis should 
be placed upon a few selected points. Under the 
conditions above enumerated, the formal elementary 
period can end in six years. 

"2. Content subjects should not be taught with 
the methods suitable to the formal subjects; for in- 
stance, in the elementary period, literature, history 
and science should be inspirational; this does not 
mean presentation to pupils of amusing stuff. No 
doctrine has been more harmful than that one sub- 
ject of study is as good as another and that all 
subjects should be taught alike; arithmetic is a tool 
and a discipline in absolute accuracy ; literature, his- 
tory, and elementary science in this period are for 
culture. 

"3. Include the last two years of the elementary 
school in the period of secondary education and be- 
gin the study of foreign languages, elementary alge- 
bra, constructive geometry, elementary science, and 
history two years earlier." 

At the end of the elementary course, at twelve 
or fourteen, the student comes to the parting of the 
ways. Up to this point all children follow the same 
general course. Now, individual inclinations and so- 
cial forces lead the youth in different directions, and 
it is the plain duty of the schools to give the best that 
they are capable of giving to those who are com- 
pelled to follow one course as well as to those who 
elect to follow another. The fortunately circum- 
stanced go to high school and enter upon a supple- 
mentary course of general training which may also 



PREVOCATIONAL TRAINING 195 

distinctly prepare for entrance into vocational 
schools of engineering, law or medicine. Ample pro- 
vision is made for all who desire, and are able, to 
follow this course and also for those who go still 
further and take a college course as further general 
education or as a more thorough preparation for the 
study of a learned vocation. 

The present problem is to give the same efficient 
pre vocational education to the great mass of youth 
who quit school or who remain in the school, but 
who are indifferent to it. It is demonstrated by ex- 
perience that the majority of the boys and girls leave 
school at fourteen, or before the completion of the 
grammar grades. Part of them go to work irf fac- 
tories, stores and workshops and at odd jobs; a part 
assist at home, and a part become mere idlers. 

The work upon which the majority of youth en- 
ter at fourteen does not promise anything for future 
advancement. Mostly such work leads into blind 
alleys. The skilled trades do not take apprentices or 
helpers before sixteen and employers in progressive 
occupations do not want workers before that age. 
The years from fourteen to sixteen are wasted years 
in industry and, under present conditions, they are 
wasted years in school. They are worse than wasted 
if children are led into blind alleys in industry, or if 
they acquire slovenly habits of work in school 
through dislike of the school courses. 

A new type of industrial school is needed to fill 



196 LEARNING JO EARN 

the gap which now exists in our educational system. 
The new school must make its appeal to the millions 
of boys and girls from fourteen to sixteen years of 
age who do not take advantage of the academic 
high school. It must be open to all who can profit by 
it whether they have completed the eighth grade or 
the first grade. It must make its appeal by interest 
instead of by compulsion and it must therefore be 
closely related to the life of youth or their vocational 
inclinations. It will be adapted by necessity to the 
dominant interests of the community. Agriculture, 
trades, industries and business will be emphasized 
in their proper place. Home economics will be uni- 
versal for girls, but adapted to the particular re- 
quirements of each community. Above all, the prob- 
lems which confront every one as a consumer of 
goods or pleasures, will receive universal attention 
as a means of conservation of vital and material re- 
sources. 

The industrial schools should not seek to teach a 
vocation in its entirety. Children under sixteen are 
too young for formal vocational training. The prime 
purpose in this period is to utilize the vocational in- 
terests for the purpose of broader education. Buf 
much vocational knowledge and skill should result, 
and principally such knowledge and skill as will in- 
telligently guide youth away from unpromising, un- 
economic employment, into permanent vocations 
which offer a satisfactory future. 



CHAPTER X 

THE PLACE OF THE VOCATIONAL SCHOOL 

The place of the vocational school — Takes place of apprentice- 
ship — Extent of vocational schools — Professional schools- 
Vocational schools for defectives and delinquents — Need for 
vocational schools for the great mass of workers — Require- 
ments — Open to all who can profit by the instruction — To pre- 
pare all-round workers — Must be practical — Supply deficien- 
cies of apprenticeships — Needs for many kinds of vocational 
schools — The heart of the vocational education system. 

Vocational education has been defined js that 
kind of education the controlHng purpose of which 
is to fit for profitable employment. An all-time 
vocational school is one which seeks to organize the 
body of principles and facts of any given trade, pro- 
fession or calling and to impart them to the learner, 
together with skill in performance of the work re- 
quired in the trade, profession or calling. 

It is difficult to draw the line sharply between a 
school for general education and a school for voca- 
tional education because what might be general 
education to one person might be vocational prepa- 
ration to another. Thus the ordinary college course 
is usually counted as general education, while to 
many it is a vocational preparation for teaching, 
public service, social service work and many un- 

197 



198 LEARNING TO EARN 

classified callings. Likewise, a high-school educa- 
tion, while general to nearly all of the students, 
is vocational to a small minority. Both in college 
and high school the same training may be to one 
person a preparation to enter a professional school, 
while to another it may be the preparation for actual 
work. 

Broadly speaking, however, a vocational school is 
one whose distinct purpose is vocational preparation 
and whose courses are devoted, almost entirely, to 
subjects and training directly connected with that 
preparation. 

The most highly developed forms of the voca- 
tional school are the medical and nurses' schools, 
law schools, theological seminaries, normals, dental 
schools, schools of pharmacy, veterinary science, 
engineering and architecture, and schools for the 
training of machinists, carpenters and electricians. 

The evolution of these schools follows a similar 
course. Training for each of these vocations was 
at first by the apprenticeship system. Typical of the 
development is that of the medical colleges. Med- 
ical education in this country *'began and for many 
years continued to exist as a supplement to the 
apprenticeship system still in vogue during the sev- 
enteenth and eighteenth centuries. The likely youth 
of that period destined to a medical career was at 
an early age indentured to some reputable practi- 
tioner, to whom his services were successively 



THE VOCATIONAL SCHOOL 199 

menial, pharmaceutical and professional ; he ran his 
master's errands, washed the bottles, mixed the 
drugs, spread the plasters and finally, as the stipu- 
lated term drew toward its close, actually took part 
in the daily practise of his preceptor — bleeding his 
patients, pulling their teeth and obeying a hurried 
summons in the night. The quality of the training 
varied within large limits with the capacity and con- 
scientiousness of the master."^ 

Likewise in law, the prevailing method of instruc- 
tion up to recently was the practical training of 
young law students in the office of a practising 
attorney, where the students did the meni^ and 
simpler tasks of the office in return for the instruc- 
tion and guidance of the attorney. 

Dentistry, engineering, pharmacy, architecture, 
were all taught in the same way. But successively 
as the body of knowledge available for each of these 
vocations increased in quantity and complexity and 
the responsibilities of the practitioners became 
heavier, something further was needed to supple- 
ment the apprenticeship training. 

The movement for the building up of vocational 
schools was accelerated also by the rising standards 
of all vocations touching the public health, comfort 
and safety. Licenses to practise, based upon proved 
qualifications, made necessary a broader knowledge, 



^Medical Education in the United States, Bulletin No. 4, 
p. 3. Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. 



200 



LEARNING TO EARN 



and that knowledge could not be acquired with cer- 
tainty except by organized courses of instruction. 
The vocational school has therefore in many callings 
almost entirely replaced the older system of training. 
In 1912-13 there were in the United States one 
hundred and seventy-nine theological seminaries, 
with ten thousand nine hundred and sixty-five stu- 
dents; one hundred and twenty- four law schools, 
with twenty thousand eight hundred and seventy- 
eight students; one hundred and four medical 
schools, with seventeen thousand and twenty-one 
students; forty-eight dental schools, with eight 
thousand one hundred and fifteen students ; seventy- 
five schools of pharmacy, with six thousand one 
hundred and sixty-five students; one thousand and 
ninety- four training schools for nurses, with thirty- 
four thousand four hundred and seventeen students ; 
twenty-two veterinary colleges, with two thousand 
three hundred and twenty- four students ; there were 
ninety- four thousand four hundred and fifty-five 
students in normal schools, while fully fifty thou- 
sand more were preparing for teaching in the regu- 
lar college course and in the state universities alone 
over fifteen thousand were taking engineering and 
other technological courses. In most of these voca- 
tions at the present time few, if any, persons enter 
except through the preparation of the vocational 
schools, and the place of the school is permanently 
fixed. 



JHE VOCATIONAL SCHOOL 201 

One by one these vocational schools have been 
developed and the movement is rapidly extending to 
provide means of vocational preparation in the many 
fields in which men labor. In much of this develop- 
ment the incentive of public protection against in- 
competence in matters closely affecting safety, 
health and convenience has been uppermost. That 
same incentive will extend vocational education still 
more widely, for it is a matter of public protection 
to see that the electrician is competent to wire a 
house, or the plumber to install sanitary fixtures, or 
the engineer to safeguard the lives and property in 
his keeping. Hundreds of instances might be cited 
to show the dependence of the public upon the qual- 
ity of work of men in all kinds of skilled occupa- 
tion. The incompetent bricklayer or carpenter may 
leave defects which will prove dangerous ; the grocer 
who does not know his business may endanger lives 
by unsanitary products, and the janitor holds a 
direct relation to the safety and comfort of his 
employer or the latter's tenants. 

Even where the relation to health and safety is 
not direct there is a demand for competence to con- 
serve resources by the prevention of waste and the 
full utilization of all material for their best pur- 
poses. 

The development of vocational instruction has 
been uniformly the same. At first, training was by 
means of apprenticeship, then the school came to 



202 LEARNING TO EARN 

supplement apprenticeship, and finally it superseded 
the apprenticeship system entirely. THe present 
tendency is to combine the two by supplementing the' 
vocational school with a well-regulated apprentice- 
ship after the completion of the formal or founda- 
tion courses. 

Another development of vocational schools should 
be noted. At the farthest extreme from profes- 
sional schools, vocational preparation has been de- 
veloped for defectives, delinquents and dependents. 
Simple trades and occupations are taught to the 
blind, deaf and dumb, the feeble-minded and to the 
delinquent boys and girls in industrial schools and to 
men and women in reformatories. Excellent results 
have been obtained from this training and the object 
lesson is impressive. Here is proof that even in the 
simplest work instruction may be so organized as to 
train a mentally weak and abnormal person to do 
certain definite things with profit to himself and the 
state and the joy of accomplishment. 

Between the extremes of professional preparation 
on the one hand and the vocational training of de- 
fectives and delinquents on the other, stands the need 
of training the great body of men and women who 
toil for a living. It is of these that the federal 
commission on vocational education said not one in 
a hundred is properly trained for the work he is 
doing. 

Beginnings have been made and at least enough 



THE VOCATIONAL SCHOOL 203 

has been done to enable us to determine the ramifica- 
tions of the problem. 

In 1913 there were in the United States more than 
three hundred and fifty thousand students in com- 
mercial courses in public and private schools. This 
represented a fair proportion of those who were 
preparing for employment in stenography, book- 
keeping and office work. The larger part of these 
students were being prepared in private commercial 
schools operated for profit, with the educational 
features in the background. The barest elements 
are offered and no pretense of a real broad voca- 
tional training in commercial work is made. *Such 
training amounts to a preparation to begin simple 
work, but is not a means, however, of training for 
any large success in such vocations. 

But on the side of productive work in the indus- 
trial world an insignificant percentage of the new 
recruits are prepared, even in the slightest degree, 
for the work they are undertaking. Trade schools 
are a rarity. While they are common enough to 
prove their efficacy, they do not yet train any con- 
siderable portion of the skilled workers in any city, 
and in many of the states they are wholly unknown. 
In a few of the highly skilled trades a number of 
trade schools can be found. Carpentry and the 
machine trades are taught in a large number of 
places scattered over the country. Here and there 
isolated schools are giving courses in specific call- 



204 LEARNING TO EARN 

ings. Experience is available for teaching fully a 
hundred well-organized vocations, yet probably in 
the whole country not more than ten thousand boys 
and girls are being trained, while the annual draft 
of youth for the industries exceeds a million and a 
half. 

This cursory review of the extent of schools de- 
signed to fit persons for profitable employment will 
serve to determine more definitely the purpose of 
such schools. One thing is evident, that vocational 
schools may successfully train men and women for 
simple callings, skilled trades or the most exacting 
professions. 

The period of experiment has passed in training 
for some vocations and is passing in others. The 
universal success of such schools impels the confi- 
dent expectation that they will be successful in any 
vocation which is dependent upon a body of knowl- 
edge and skill capable of organization and applica- 
tion. 

Let us now examine more closely the basic ideas 
of schools organized for the purpose of vocational 
preparation. 

1. The first consideration is that the students 
shall be able to profit by the instruction offered, 
This means that they shall be old enough to engage 
profitably in the work of the vocation for which 
they are trained and that they shall have definitely 
decided to follow that vocation. It means also that 



THE VOCATIONAL SCHOOL 205 

they ought to be reasonably adapted to the work 
they will be required to do. It is a waste of time to 
try to train a clumsy slow-thinking boy to be a 
stenographer or telegrapher, or a man who can not 
master mathematics to be an electrical engineer. 

The earliest age at which the simplest vocational 
schools should be open is about sixteen, and entrance 
into vocational schools for the more complex call- 
ings should be based upon the amount of prelim- 
inary training needed for the successful study of the 
vocation. This will vary greatly, rising in such pro- 
fessions as medicine to a college preparation. 

There are two considerations which argue f on the 
sixteen-year age requirement. The period up to 
that age is the time for general education. Children 
need to test themselves out. No child could intelli- 
gently choose to prepare for a vocation before that 
age and any attempt to choose for him is wrong. 
Secondly, there are few callings for which voca- 
tional schools should be organized to prepare that 
can profitably use trained workers at a younger age 
than seventeen or eighteen. Most of the skilled 
trades fix the entrance age upon apprenticeship at 
sixteen, and that is the earliest accepted age at 
which preparation for such trades in schools should 
begin. 

With such powerful reasons in favor of this mini- 
mum, it is clear, as heretofore pointed out, that the 
elementary schools should fill the period up to six- 



206 LEARNING TO EARN 

teen. To do that will require the establishment of 
a new type of school for the "wasted years" be- 
tween fourteen and sixteen for those who do not 
profit by the bookish high school. Probably the 
solution of this problem will be found in the general 
industrial preparatory courses which, while not 
training directly for a vocation, will lay the founda- 
tion for the study of different vocations and will 
give sound guidance in the choice of a vocation for 
which to prepare. 

2. Vocational schools are designed to prepare 
all-round workers and not specialized automatons. 
It is because industry has failed to do this that the 
necessity for vocational schools arises. Under the 
apprentice system in profession and trade the ap- 
prentice was trained narrowly in the main to the 
specialty which the master knew. Broad training in 
the whole profession or trade was impossible except 
in those rare cases where the master knew his trade 
or profession thoroughly and had the teaching 
power to impart it to his pupil. Under modern 
machine production methods even the training 
which apprenticeship afforded can not be had. 
Workers are put at a single process and after they 
become proficient in it they are kept at it. "Manu- 
facturers want men," said a prominent manufac- 
turer at the Grand Rapids meeting of the National 
Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education, 



THE VOCATIONAL SCHOOL 207 

"who are content to stay at one machine process 
after they have become proficient in it." 

The vocational school challenges that position and 
says that no man should be forced, for lack of the 
opportunity for training, to become a mere automa- 
ton. The school would therefore offer the chance 
to become skilful in as many operations as the 
ability of the worker will permit, and would give the 
opportunity for the full mastery to those who are 
capable to accomplish it. By so doing the school 
stands for the man by opening a way out of a blind 
alley, and it stands for industry by promoting 
greater industrial intelligence and adaptability. The 
vocational school also takes account of the supple- 
mentary knowledge needed to give a broad view of 
the vocation as a whole and its relation to society 
and also of the growth of science, art and invention 
which are constantly reshaping old processes of in- 
dustry and adding new processes. Education in its 
true sense, as well as training for skill, is the end 
and aim of vocational schools in professions, trades 
and occupations. 

3. Vocational schools are designed to train men 
and women to do definite things. They must there- 
fore be practical. By their results men expect to 
earn their daily bread. The knowledge and skill 
which they give are put at once to the acid test of 
actual work. The young doctor, lawyer or pharma- 



208 LEARNING TO EARN 

cist from the professional schools must handle actual 
cases, and life and property are dependent upon 
them. The carpenter, plumber, printer and machin- 
ist from the trade school go to work for wages, and 
their employment is dependent upon their ability to 
do the work of their trade satisfactorily. The 
farmer and housekeeper put their knowledge and 
skill to a concrete test and mistakes are costly. 

To train workers to actual work the vocational 
school should have the equipment to enable its stu- 
dents to perform the work which they must do in 
their profession, trade or calling, and to perform it 
under as nearly trade conditions as possible. This 
requirement is the first essential of a vocational 
school. 

To a degree that it is not met, the school produces 
theorists instead of skilled workers. Many have 
professed to see in this requirement the fatal weak- 
ness of vocational schools because of the expense of 
equipment, the difficulty of putting the work on a 
commercial basis and the problem of disposal of the 
product. Doubtless in many vocations these diffi- 
culties are very great, in some perhaps insurmount- 
able, except by cooperation with shops, offices and 
industries, but these difficulties must be studied and 
overcome in the best manner possible. Professional 
and technical schools are being equipped with ade- 
quate laboratories and shops, trade schools are 
proving that such facilities may be provided in a 



THE VOCATIONAL SCHOOL 209 

large number of trades, and cooperation between 
shop and school is opening a practicable and efficient 
means of doing actual work. All experience would 
suggest that these problems may be solved by care- 
fully analyzing the processes of industry and by 
working out an harmonious relation of the work of 
the school and the shop. 

4. The vocational school is intended to supply the 
deficiencies of the apprenticeship system. The 
breakdown of the latter creates the necessity for such 
a school. Because the apprentice in most trades, pro- 
fessions and callings does not receive the broad 
education which he needs for industrial effi(?iency 
and civic power, the vocational school is organized. 
It is not a rival institution. It does those things 
which apprenticeship is failing to do. Its purpose 
is to supply to workers that education which an 
ideal system of apprenticeship formerly gave, i. e., 
thorough knowledge of the best practise, skill in 
performance of the work required, scientific insight 
into its processes, an understanding of its relation to 
society as a whole, and a capacity to grow with the 
growth of science, art and invention in the calling. 
The vocational school must therefore be thorough 
in its work. It must be so if it is to have an endur- 
ing effect in the advancement of science, skill and 
intelligence in any vocation. It must be thorough 
also if its graduates are to be respected among their 
craftsmen. Skilled workers in any vocation look 



210 LEARNING TO EARN 

with just suspicions upon the "half-baked" worker, 
whether he is a quack in medicine, a pettifogger in 
law or a half -trained strikebreaker in a trade. 

Protesting upon this point, the American Federa- 
tion of Labor declared against ''those schools oper- 
ated for profit which advertise short cuts to the 
trades. They are turning out not even machine 
specialists, but are flooding the labor market with 
half -trained mechanics for the purpose of exploita- 
tion. There is a growing feeling which is gaining 
rapidly in strength that the human element must be 
recognized, and can not be so disregarded as to 
make the future workmen either inefficient or mere 
automatic machines. . . . We do insist that 
emphasis must be placed upon education rather than 
upon product. The youth must not be exploited in 
the name of education. There must be the minimum 
of product and a maximum of education. In short, 
during the period of education it ought to be 'con- 
struction for instruction rather than instruction for 
construction.' "^ 

5. Vocational schools should be established in as 
many vocations as possible in order to offset the 
present "vicious distribution of population" in the 
work of the world, resulting from giving special 
opportunities for training in a few vocations. Hav- 
ing accepted our duty to provide the means of train- 



' Report on Industrial Education, p. 26. 



THE VOCATIONAL SCHOOL 211 

ing for profitable employment in some vocations, we 
must accept the full burden of vocational training 
in as many of the fields of labor as conditions war- 
rant. There is no reason for a school of electrical 
engineering which does not call for a school for 
electricians; there is no reason to provide a college 
of mechanical engineering and not a school for 
machinists; there is as much need for a school for 
sanitarians as for physicians. In fact, there is an 
even greater obligation upon the public to provide a 
universal system of vocational schools because pri- 
vate as well as public enterprise has, by supplying 
facilities in certain fields and not in other% pro- 
moted a "vicious distribution" of workers. The 
correction of this social aberration will not be made 
except by public action which shall seek to raise the 
humbler occupations in dignity beside their prouder 
sisters, by discovering all there is in each vocation of 
large human significance and by seeking to impart 
the requisite knowledge and skill in a broad educa- 
tional program. 

6. The vocational school is the core of the voca- 
tional education system. It will be in each vocation 
the nucleus from which will radiate educational 
activities designed to reach and benefit all the work- 
ers in the vocation through part-time courses, eve- 
ning courses, extension work and effective reading. 
In itself it will not solve the vocational problem in 
many vocations for the reason that at best it will 



212 LEARNING TO EARN 

directly educate only a small portion of the workers. 
But it will develop a body of knowledge of the voca- 
tion, a scientific approach to its problems and a 
method of effective teaching. It will supply the raw 
material for each vocation just as the schools of ag- 
riculture have supplied the science, art and teaching 
knowledge for the wide extension of agricultural 
data through winter schools, extension teaching, 
demonstration farms and informational bulletins, 
and it will be the means of preparing teachers who, 
where their knowledge shall have been reinforced by 
practical experience in actual work, will be the most 
powerful factors in the right guidance of vocational 
education. 



CHAPTER XI 

PART-TIME EDUCATION 

Needs of youth who quit school — Schools must supply further 
education if workers are to progress — School has heretofore 
stopped at factory door — Continuation courses to help misfits 
— Trade extension courses to increase efficiency — Supplemen- 
tary training requires correlation of study with the occupa- 
tion — Analysis of occupations needed — Part-time education 
useful to adults — Evening schools — Courses need to be prac- 
tical and definite. 

One of the unsolved educational problems is to 
reach and promote the welfare of the great mAibers 
of persons over fourteen years of age who leave the 
schools and enter upon employment before being 
properly educated for vocational work or civic effi- 
ciency. Elsewhere in this volume the facts are given 
concerning the defection of youth from school at or 
about fourteen years of age. It is unnecessary here 
to enlarge upon the reasons already given why chil- 
dren leave school. The bare fact remains that they 
do leave and that they are all too poorly qualified to 
take up the industrial burdens which they are assum- 
ing. 

At present it is probably impossible to bring any 
large portion of these children back into the school, 
no matter how attractive the courses may be made. 
It is hard for such children to see the advantage of 

213 



214 LEARNING TO EARN 

foregoing the wage which they earn — ^however 
small — in order to seek personal efficiency through 
a return to the all-day school. Most young people 
must have experience and work to convince them of 
the need and value of vocational training. They 
must work long enough and under such conditions 
as to realize what their deficiency in education 
means. They are likely to see by experience and 
work that broader knowledge gives greater adapta- 
bility and insures steadier employment and more 
certain promotion. The "way out" becomes more 
definite than when viewed as an abstract problem 
before leaving the schools and being sobered by 
actual work. 

Even when a system of education shall have been 
established more suited to the needs of all children, 
there will still be large numbers who will leave 
school from economic necessity or short-sightedness 
and enter into unskilled work having no outlook. 

The vitalizing of elementary courses for children 
under fourteen, the establishment of vocational pre- 
paratory schools for children between fourteen and 
sixteen, and the organization of vocational schools 
for youth above sixteen will hold many children in 
school for a longer period and give to many a prepa- 
ration for a life-work, but the real problem is to 
reach the boy or girl who, for any reason, has gone 
to work. 

The place of the school is clear in this matter. 



PART-TIME EDUCATION 215 

Industry as now organized does not and will not 
look after any considerable part of the youth who 
enter upon work every year in great throngs. If 
any further education is supplied to them, the 
schools must supply it. It must not be assumed, 
however, that no important obligation rests on the 
employer in behalf of the further education of his 
young employees. The benefits are partly his and the 
obligation should be in proportion to the benefits. 

Industries are calling for more general industrial 
intelligence which will give greater adaptability, 
interest and precision in work and which will make 
the task of foremen and superintendents less%diffi- 
cult than it is with large numbers of workers who 
are mere automatons — a part of the machine on 
which they work. Progressive employers realize 
that they can not go on indefinitely drawing their 
skilled men, foremen and superintendents from out- 
side the shop, from the schools, or from the ranks 
of the skilled workers of Europe; they know that 
the most substantial progress is to be made by a 
forward movement all along the line in their shops 
— by opening up the road along which each and 
every employee may travel toward the goal of 
greater skill and power. Thus what the state desires 
for the welfare of the individual and society, the 
industries need as a material asset. 

To state the problem in this way is to suggest the 
obligations of each. ^When all purposes conspire to 



216 LEARNING TO EARN 

one end, there should be little difficulty in fixing the 
responsibility of each. The scheme of part-time 
education recognizes the obligation of the state and 
of industry by providing for the necessary instruc- 
tion and guidance through the agency of the school 
and by requiring that industry shall so adjust itself 
to the scheme that young workers shall be allowed 
the time from their daily employment to get the 
education necessary to themselves as workers and 
citizens. 

Let us see the extent of the problem of educating 
young workers. In 1910 there were nearly five 
million boys and two and one-half million girls from 
ten to twenty years of age at work in factories, 
stores and workshops. A very large majority 
of these had less than a grammar-school educa- 
tion. An insignificant percentage are employed in 
such a way as to grow in vocational power. Con- 
finement to single automatic processes has closed 
the door to a general knowledge of the whole proc- 
ess or business. Whatever of initiative they might 
naturally have possessed is being crushed out by 
monotonous toil. 

The first duty of the state is to conserve its youth. 
Neglect of youth results in stunted manhood and 
womanhood, stunted offspring and deterioration of 
the race. The state must see to it that childhood's 
bill of rights is observed, and among these rights is 
the child's right to special protection during the time 



PART-TIME EDUCATION 217 

he is expanding into his full powers. Every encour- 
agement possible should be given to enable him to 
reach the highest degree of personal efficiency. 

Education in its broadest sense is the duty which 
the state primarily owes to its youth — education for 
physical welfare, for vocational power, and for civic 
and moral intelligence. The schools constitute the 
state's only agency for this purpose. 

If, then, the cold hard facts show that our youth 
are leaving school at an early age, without even the 
education deemed essential as a minimum for earn- 
ing a living or for effective citizenship, and are 
entering upon occupations which lead into%blind 
alleys, it becomes the plain duty of the state so to 
organize its courses of instruction as to encourage 
a longer attendance at school and to follow into the 
industries those who go to work, to protect them 
from the crushing power of modern industrialism 
and to guide them to industrial liberty through sup- 
plementary education and vocational training. 

Instead of abandoning the child to his own 
caprices, the selfishness of parents and the greed of 
industry, the state should recognize its duty to care 
for the education and proper development of all 
youth who engage in industry as well as it now does 
for those who remain in school.^ 



* A program of part-time education in industry has been 
laid down by Arthur D. Dean in the following sections : 

1. That the education of young people is of public concern 
and that it consists of more than the training received in the 



218 LEARNING TO EARN 

Heretofore the school has stopped at the factory 
and office door and abandoned the young who enter. 
In some cities and towns evening schools have been 
provided where tired teachers have taught tired stu- 
dents, in the vain delusion that such schools would 
supply the deficiencies of the young who work dur- 
ing the day. Such schools have offered opportunity 
of a meager sort, but only to the exceptionally 
strong. As a means of solving the problem of edu- 
cating the boy and girl at work, the evening school 
has been an utter failure. It is a cure worse than 



all-day school and consequently the school must assume a 
guardianship of its youth beyond the period of day schooling. 

2. That the purpose of employment of children up to 
eighteen years of age is for the benefit of the child, forms a 
part of his educative process, and involves a consideration of 
the most important question of how far employment in occu- 
pations suitable to childhood can be made educative. 

3. That no child is to go to work until he has reached a 
certain maturity, the degree of which is not to be fixed en- 
tirely by age limitations. 

4. That no child is to go to work until he is physically fit 
to enter upon an occupational life. 

5. That children are to work only in those occupations 
which have been approved after investigation by the state de- 
partment of labor, a list of such occupations to be on file in 
the office of the local superintendent of schools. 

6. That children are to work only in those local places of 
productive and distributive labor the physical and moral con- 
ditions of which have been favorably reported upon by the 
state labor department and the names of which are on file in 
the office of the local superintendent of schools. 

7. That no child is to go to work until he has an employ- 
ment certificate entitling him to work at a specific occupation 
for a specific employer. Every month the certificate is to be 
renewed or indorsed at the office of the superintendent of 
schools and due note to be taken relative to the change of 
process or occupation to which the child has been assigned. 

8. That no child of normal health is to remain idle, for 



PART-TIME EDUCATION 219 

the disease, when, on top of the wearisome toil of a 
day in a factory, the tired boy or girl comes to the 
evening school for further education. 

The part-time school is needed for these young 
workers, whereby they may devote a part of their 
working day to instruction which will supplement 
their daily experience and give them the broader 
education upon which their future growth and ad- 
vancement depend. This part-time education may 
be given in classes for a few hours each week, or by 
alternate days or weeks in the shop and school, or, 

immediately after the child has ceased to be employed the 
employer is to notify the local school authorities and the 
child is to return to his proper grade in the regular schools or 
in special classes organized for such children. 

9. That when a child goes to work he is to work the first 
year at profitable employment for not more than one-half of 
the time formerly provided for in the child-labor law; that 
the second year the child is to be employed not more than 
two-thirds of the time formerly provided for such employ- 
ment; that in the third year the child is to be employed not 
more than three-fourths of the time formerly provided and 
that not until the child is eighteen is he to work in profitable 
employment for a full working day. 

10. That a child is to spend in school the difference between 
the time when he would legally be at work if section 9 did 
not prevail and the time when he is at work after section 10 
prevails. 

11. That the school instruction for such young people is to 
have any one or a combination of any of the plans herein set 
forth. To wit: (a) that the school work is to continue along 
lines of general education; or, (b) that it is to give prevoca- 
tional training which will assist the young worker in deter- 
mining his vocational qualifications for a particular occupa- 
tion ; or, (c) that it is to give trade or occupational extension 
work in order that he may be more proficient in the occupa- 
tion at which he is now engaged. 

Proceedings, Department of Attendance, N. E. A. 
Cincinnati, Ohio, February, 1915, p. 47. 



220 LEARNING TO EARN 

in the case of seasonal occupations, a few weeks 
each year in the dull season. 

Such classes may be organized with any time ar- 
rangement which will suit the convenience of the 
employer and employees best, the essential things 
being that such education shall be given during the 
daily employment and that the instruction shall be 
under public control and shall aim to accomplish two 
ends — the promotion of vocational efficiency and the 
development of civic intelligence. 

Two types of training should be provided for 
youth in part-time classes. The first should aim to 
further the general education of youth who are in 
automatic employments or in blind-alley jobs, in 
order to enlarge their general knowledge and guide 
them into vocations suitable for permanent employ- 
ment. This is the function of the "continuation 
school." The second should aim to increase the 
vocational knowledge, in the line in which thi|y are 
employed, of youth who have chosen a suitable voca- 
tion for a life-work. This is the function of "trade 
extension courses.'' 

The apprenticeship system formerly supplied the 
need of the young worker. In many cases the law 
required a certain amount of instruction to be given 
and the very nature of the industry gave opportunity 
for a broad knowledge of it. The apprentice could 
learn the whole trade from single individuals. To- 
day, if he learns the whole trade, he must get it 



PART-TIME EDUCATION 221 

from many persons. The minute division of labor 
in most industries has made it more profitable to 
keep workers at single processes which can be 
learned in a few days. The opportunity is seldom 
offered within a factory for a broad knowledge of 
the whole trade or even of very many processes of 
the trade. Young men become discouraged and 
drift from place to place, hoping thereby to *'steal a 
trade" by learning several processes from several 
shops, or they become discouraged and quit to take 
up anything that offers. 

Under the apprenticeship system the youth 
worked with the master, often livinsf as a member 
of the family. The master taught the apprentice all 
he knew of the art and mystery of the trade. The 
master was in a position to supplement the daily 
tasks of the boy with ready-at-hand principles and 
information. If the master knew the science and 
art of his craft, this was the ideal system of part- 
time education. 

The same thing applied in the training of young 
doctors, lawyers, pharmacists, dentists and engi- 
neers. The young man studied beside the old prac- 
titioner. He did part of the work of his master and 
received constant advice and information of princi- 
ples and practise. He had a ready source of in- 
forQiation at hand. Again, if the master knew his 
profession, the youth received the ideal part-time 
education. Even to-day the idea is kept alive in the 



222 LEARNING TO EARN 

medical profession by the usual practise of requir- 
ing a year in a hospital for medical students, and in 
the law by the association of young law students in 
the office of practising attorneys. 

In earlier times education was crudely of a part- 
time character ; that is, the boy on the farm and the 
girl in the home performed regular tasks before and 
after school and during vacations, and the elder 
children attended the schools in the winter or other 
season when they were free. This condition pre- 
vails largely in the rural communities to-day. It has 
often been extolled as the virtue of the "little red 
schoolhouse" that boys and girls who knew how to 
work and were not afraid of work were able to 
profit more intensively by the instruction offered in 
the school. 

Doubtless the advantages came from the spirit of 
work which prevailed, although some may have 
accrued from the fact that school work did not 
cover a confusing range of studies. One thing is 
certain, namely, that the advantages were not se- 
cured by any coordination of the school work with 
daily life. The work of the farm or home was sel- 
dom, if ever, brought into the school and the schools 
taught subject-matter entirely foreign to the farm 
and home. 

Part-time education as we know it to-day and by 
which we mean that the school studies shall supple- 
ment practical work, was almost unknown. Even 



PART-TIME EDUCATION 223 

to-day the barest beginnings have been attempted 
here and there to make the schools relate, even in the 
remotest way, to work which the young people are 
performing in the home and on the farm. When- 
ever it has been attempted it has not been effectively 
coordinated so that each project at home shall re- 
ceive its proper amount of supplementary education 
and so that each parcel of education may be carried 
to a good end. A new spirit and purpose have, 
however, taken hold of our rural education. We 
are learning the secret of successful rural education. 
That secret is found in the application of the prin- 
ciples of part-time education. » 

Probably in no field of work is there such a vast 
range of supplementary, scientific and practical 
knowledge as in the home and on the farm. Prob- 
ably, too, no fields of work offer more monotonous 
toil than the home and farm if it is uninspired by 
power-giving knowledge. The results of the com- 
bination of knowledge and work relieve the monot- 
ony of the work and make effective the knowledge. 

Elementary education in agriculture and domestic 
science, if properly organized, will perform some of 
the task of part-time education for young workers. 
By their means young people will be more closely 
brought into touch with their surroundings, and 
knowledge which they get will be vitalized. 

It is important to remember, however, how neces- 
sary it is to extend the time of education beyond 



224 LEARNING TO EARN 

ordinary school days. The young map going to 
work on the home farm at fourteen to sixteen needs 
especially to have the help of supplementary educa- 
tion if he is to develop into a broad-gauged, con- 
tented and progressive farmer. What he gains in 
the elementary schools will often be too general and 
not immediately applicable; what he learns in the 
part-time school in short winter courses or from the 
itinerant teacher should be that which he can put 
into immediate practise. New methods are con- 
stantly being applied and new discoveries of science 
made which he ought to apply to his work. The 
part-time school should be a source of the latest 
scientific and practical applications in agriculture. 
By coordination he gains a practical knowledge of 
chemistry, physics, drawing, mathematics, geology, 
botany and zoology. The way is opened up for 
limitless expansion of knowledge of a kind that the 
farmer can put into almost daily use. 

Unfortunately, the schools have interested them- 
selves very little in the future of their pupils after 
leaving school. Except for the occasional interest 
which teachers take in favored individuals, the 
school knows nothing of what happens to the thou- 
sands who leave along the way. Very few cities 
keep any adequate statistics which give the age or 
qualifications of those who leave. No facts are 
available as to where the pupils go on leaving and 
no attempt is made to determine, even for any con- 



PART-TIME EDUCATION 225 

siderable group, what outlook they may have for 
advancement or how the school might cooperate in 
that advancement. 

Part-time education takes into account all of these 
things. It implies a study of industry as related to 
the school and the school as related to industry. It 
implies also a study of the articulation of school 
and work in such a way that the children who have 
gone to work may receive that kind of instruction 
best suited to their advancement in the work in 
which they are engaged or to the training of those 
employed in ''dead-end" jobs so that they may pre- 
pare for work suitable for adults, and it implies a 
constant cooperation with young and old who de- 
sire to progress and to keep pace with the new 
developments of science and art in their vocations. 

Part-time education should be compulsory for 
children between fourteen and eighteen who have 
gone to work in order to take advantage of the 
knowledge which they have acquired in school and 
which they will forget after a brief time. The 
school must bridge the chasm from the school to the 
office or shop, the farm or home, and make the way 
as inviting as possible in order that a new spirit of 
self -education may be infused into the young which 
will carry them afterward into the evening schools, 
correspondence and extension courses and intelli- 
gent reading. 

This view is supported by the well-known fact 



226 LEARNING TO EARN 

that a large part — probably ninety per cent.^ — of all 
that the children learn is forgotten within a brief 
space after leaving school. When school courses 
are organized for purposeful and efficient teaching, 
the amount of this educational loss will be dimin- 
ished. At present a very efficient system of part- 
time schools is needed to save as much as possible 
of the unassimilated knowledge poured into the 
minds by the cramming process of teaching. 

What is here said concerning the need of part- 
time education for those who leave at an early age 
is applicable just as forcibly to those who leave in 
the higher grades. At no point is the school work 
articulated with the work of the world. The high- 
school graduate and the college graduate are just as 
far from harmonious relation with a job as are the 
industrial workers. Part-time education is needed 
for them in order to make efficient their knowledge 
by putting the useful part of it in working order and 
to keep them abreast with the state of science and 
art of their vocations. 

Important as are the needs for part-time educa- 
tion all along the line, the most pressing needs are in 
industrial, home and farm work. Here millions of 
people work in productive industry. The prosperity 
of the country rests upon them. Let them be well 
trained, for we must expect much of them. The 
needs of professional workers have been somewhat 
supplied by all-time vocational schools — the Indus- 



PART-TIME EDUCATION 227 

trial workers scarcely at all. No appreciable effort 
has yet been made except in a dozen isolated cities 
to give part-time industrial work, and only in the 
short courses of agricultural colleges has there been 
any serious attempt to give part-time education for 
farmers. The idea has been applied in home-project 
work for young children in agriculture and domestic 
science, but not systematically for the practical 
training of farmers or home-makers and their con- 
tinued guidance. 

While the first end of education must always be 
the training of the immature youth, no opportunity 
should be lost to extend the advantages of knowl- 
edge to every person, young and old. Knowledge 
supplementary to the daily task of the worker may 
be supplied almost universally with great profit and 
inspiration. Some mature workers are in a position 
to profit by seasonal part-time schools. The farmer 
with free time on his hands in the winter will be in 
a position to profit by short courses in agriculture; 
the carpenter and plumber have off seasons when 
organized courses could be advantageously taken; 
likewise in many occupations there are dull seasons 
or parts of a day which could be utilized in supply- 
ing the deficiencies of the vocational knowledge of 
workers. For the larger number of mature work- 
ers, however, the evening school must be the sole 
reliance for regular educational courses. Here the 
opportunity is given to the strong ambitious 



228 LEARNING TO EARN 

worker to extend his trade knowledge and thereby 
increase his efficiency and to keep up to date in his 
vocation without loss of time from his daily labor. 

Although unsuited to the young, the evening 
school may be useful to the mature man who is 
seeking to overcome his deficiencies and to gain new 
power. But the courses must be extremely practical. 
There must be no lost motion, no attempt at general 
training, no deferring of concrete results, no effort 
at mental discipline. The fitting of definite units of 
knowledge into the operations of skill is the best 
result to be achieved by part-time education in 
evening schools for the more mature workers. 

In all kinds of part-time education, whether in 
day or evening schools, which aim to extend trade 
or professional knowledge, there is a particular 
necessity that the courses be kept as definite as possi- 
ble. The so-called "unit course," which seeks in a 
given set of lessons to impart a definite piece of 
knowledge or to develop a particular skill, should be 
adopted. Such a course has the advantage of giving 
tangible results in brief time. The worker profits 
immediately by it and is encouraged to take further 
courses. On the other hand, a course which leads 
to an ultimate goal and whose utility can not be 
immediately seen too often discourages the worker 
from any educational effort at all. 

A program of part-time education should be as 
broad as the needs of the workers in all lines of use- 



PART-TIME EDUCATION 229 

ful employment. It will require, therefore, a minute 
analysis of the possibilities of supplementary educa- 
tion in every profession, vocation, trade or calling 
in which men engage in order to determine the edu- 
cational needs of the workers and the most practical 
way to meet them. It will, of course, make its earli- 
est efforts where the need is greatest. At present 
that need is most acute among the millions who 
work with their hands in productive labor. 

Four fields of great promise open up for part- 
time plans for the training of productive workers in 
day, evening and seasonal classes. First, the train- 
ing for workers engaged in juvenile or specialized 
occupations which will enable them to gain favor- 
able entrance into trades suitable to adults and 
through continuation schools to enlarge their civic 
intelligence. Second, the training of workers who 
have found a suitable trade or calling to enable 
them to improve themselves in efficiency in that 
trade or calling. By such training workers should 
be enabled to do their work more intelligently and 
skilfully and to understand its relation to the whole 
process and should gain such an understanding of 
the organization of industry that promotion and 
higher positions will be possible. Third, the train- 
ing of the great numbers of girls engaged in auto- 
matic employments in practical household arts. 
Fourth, the training of men and women for per- 
sonal efficiency in every-day duties outside their 



230 LEARNING TO EARN 

profession, trade or calling. Such training might be 
called training for conservation. It should relate to 
the proper utilization of materials, of food and 
dress, the saving of fuel, the sanitation of one's per- 
son and habitation, the care of the sick and preven- 
tion of diseases, the making of gardens and lawns, 
and all the activities v^hich go to make up the round 
of duties of the average person. 



CHAPTER XII 

EXTENSION AND CORRESPONDENCE WORK 

The place of correspondence and extension work in the edu- 
cational sj'^stem — What has been accomplished — Private cor- 
respondence schools — Demonstration shops and laboratories 
necessary for concrete direction — Itinerant teachers — Three 
types of correspondence schools — Project system of instruc- 
tion — Maintenance 'of centers of instruction — Personal assist- 
ance necessary — Special opportunities in business training by 
correspondence — The chamber of commerce — Centers for 
home training — Agricultural education by correspondence — 
The place of the university in correspondence and extension 
work. 

The purpose of the reorganization of the educa- 
tional system along vocational lines has been stated 
repeatedly in this volume. Generally speaking, it is 
education for occupational and civic efficiency, not 
for an inconsiderable minority of the people, but 
approximately for one hundred per cent, of our 
citizens. Roughly speaking, it is divided into pre- 
vocational and vocational training. The former is 
to be realized by our present elementary schools 
after they have been shot through with localized 
n]otives and concrete subject-matter as a basis of 
instruction. The latter is to be realized chiefly by 
the vocational school — the commercial school for 
business, the trade school for industry, the agrlcul- 

231 



232 LEARNING TO EARN 

tural school for agriculture and the school of house- 
hold science and management for the home, and by 
supplementary instruction and training for workers 
whose time for self -improvement is limited. 

In the natural order of things there will still be 
young men and women who will proceed no further 
in regular attendance upon public schools than the 
age of fourteen or sixteen years. Some young men 
and women will be compelled to go to work at four- 
teen, fifteen or sixteen. That the education of these 
young men and women may go on, even after they 
have begun work, that they may increase their effi- 
ciency in the vineyard of life, instruction through 
continuation, part-time and evening schools is de- 
vised. But there will still be many young men and 
women who may not find it convenient to attend 
evening or continuation schools and others who live 
in sparsely settled regions remote from the centers 
of advanced educational progress, but who, how- 
ever, would be able and eager to pursue their educa- 
tion by intelligent study at home. Part-time instruc- 
tion, theoretically, will provide for the educational 
needs of young men from fourteen to eighteen who 
must work all or a part of the time. It really is not 
intended to do much for men and women past the 
age of eighteen. Here Is an opportunity for educa- 
tion to reach Innumerable learners, fired with native 
enthusiasm, moved by a high order of ambition and 
capable of more or less sustained effort. Corre- 



EXTENSION WORK 233 

spondence study has already become an important 
element in the continued education of mature work- 
ers, particularly in business and in the trades. So 
far the work has been performed largely by private 
agencies. Exception should be noted with regard to 
the extension divisions now being maintained by 
several state universities, notably those of the Uni- 
versity of Wisconsin, begun in 1906; the University 
of Kansas, begun in 1909; University of Minnesota, 
begun in 1911, and Harvard University, now several 
years old. In agriculture several million mature 
workers are reached every year through the exten- 
sion divisions of agricultural colleges, witl^ their 
railroad specials, short courses, farmers' institutes 
and through the farm-bulletin service of the United 
States Department of Agriculture and the land- 
grant agricultural colleges. Various private agen- 
cies — the banks, the railroads and the manufactories 
of farm machinery — have made considerable prog- 
ress in promoting better farming. Systematic train- 
ing for the farm by correspondence study through 
public agency has scarcely been attempted. 

The weakness of undertaking the education of 
mature workers through private correspondence 
schools is not difficult to find. Fundamentally, the 
weakness is that such schools are operated for profit 
rather than for service. Private agencies can not 
afford to experiment. Creditable as much of their 
work has been, they leave much undone for the very 



234 



LEARNING TO EARN 



reason that they must be self-sustaining. More- 
over, such instruction lacks the directness which 
similar instruction through public agency might 
attain, simply because efficient education is not 
measured by the immediate cost of imparting in- 
struction. In this case the results are not circum- 
scribed by the service done in behalf of a single gen- 
eration. From the public point of view, education 
is cumulative in its results and endures to remote 
periods and survives through many generations. 
We are, therefore, willing to tax posterity for edu- 
cation in the present and we rightfully proclaim the 
defects of correspondence study and extension work 
which fail to take cognizance of the future. In a 
sentence or two, private correspondence schools are 
doing their work as well as reasonably might be 
expected and thousands of young men have made 
notable progress under their direction. Merely be- 
cause the public can bear greater burdens of expense 
in maintaining correspondence instruction, now 
comparatively inefficient because it lacks opportunity 
for practical demonstration in conjunction with 
theory, public agencies should take over this de- 
partment of instruction. 

Any form of education is subject to glaring fail- 
ures which is undertaken at long range, particularly 
because of the ever-present tendency to teach young 
men and women "what they ought to know," rather 
than "what they want to learn." In fact, this ap- 



EXTENSION WORK 235 

pears to be one of the chief troubles of classical 
instruction. Merely because the public is to pay the 
bills, correspondence and extension work is subject 
to no such limitations as those which encompass the 
private school. The ideal system of correspondence 
instruction would include the maintenance of acces- 
sible demonstration shops, farms or laboratories to 
which the student might come for concrete direction. 
The private school can not maintain these centers 
because the cost is too great to be borne by indi- 
vidual students. Unless there is a delicately ad- 
justed coordination between study and work, be- 
tween school and shop, between lesson and task, 
instruction is to that extent a failure. The Univer- 
sity of Wisconsin has overcome this patent handicap 
to extension study among the workers of that state 
by employing itinerant teachers who take up with 
the students directly and personally the matter of 
coordination between study and work. In the initial 
stages of instruction by this method the peripatetic 
teacher may be employed to good advantage. As 
the number of students increases about a given cen- 
ter, additional provision for direct contact with 
instructors and laboratories may be provided. 

The suggestion made by the Wisconsin Report on 
Industrial and Agricultural Training in 1911 re- 
garding the development of university extension 
work is peculiarly applicable to public correspond- 
ence and extension work generally. "There is a 



236 LEARNING TO EARN 

parallel between its methods and work and those of 
the early church organizations. It was necessary 
at first to have some kind of missionary work, as 
perhaps some little local demand became evident. 
Then circuit riders were sent around; men who 
preached one Sunday in one little town and the next 
Sunday in another ; the circuits grew smaller as time 
went on until churches were built, pastors secured 
and permanent organizations established in each 
town. The university extension work can follow 
the same method. When little centers are estab- 
lished, permanent buildings erected and permanent 
teachers secured, then the university extension work 
can be used as a sort of circuit-riding organization 
for still higher grades of work until the needs of the 
higher grades are supplied by permanent organiza- 
tions." So with correspondence centers and so with 
extension work, whether the agency be the univer- 
sity or the nearest vocational school where residence 
study prevails. 

Correspondence schools as now maintained are 
divided into three distinct types. First, there are a 
number of schools like the International Corre- 
spondence School at Scranton, Pennsylvania, which 
are privately endowed and privately maintained. 
This school, established in 1891, was organized for 
the purpose of "teaching employed persons the 
science of their trades or professions, preparing 
misplaced and dissatisfied people for congenial or 



EXTENSION WORK 237 

better paying work, giving young unemployed per- 
sons the training necessary to enable them to start 
at good salaries in chosen vocations." Others like 
it are the American School of Dress Making at 
Kansas City, the American School of Home Eco- 
nomics at Chicago, and the American School of 
Correspondence at Chicago. The Alexander Ham- 
ilton Institute of New York City is one of the most 
successful private correspondence schools. It un- 
dertakes to present by organized information 
courses, training for the higher reaches of business, 
for the managing and directing vocations. Its work 
should be helpful in formulating certain depart- 
ments of public commercial education by corre- 
spondence. The Sheldon School of Salesmanship, 
a private institution of Chicago, Illinois, is doing 
notable work by correspondence. Thousands of 
men employed as salesmen have been able to get a 
new grip on their work after pursuing the course 
offered by this school. These are conspicuous ex- 
♦amples of work being done by many institutions. 
Second, there are the correspondence courses main- 
tained by large corporations for the benefit of their 
employees. The Union Pacific Railroad's Educa- 
tional Bureau of Information is typical of this class. 
Its announced object is to assist employees to assume 
greater responsibilities, to increase the knowledge 
and efficiency of employees and to prepare prospec- 
tive employees for service. The School of Railway 



238 LEARNING TO EARN 

Signaling at Utica, New York, which has an advis- 
ory board of practical railroad signal engineers from 
fifteen different roads, has similar objects. In this 
class might be named the International Typograph- 
ical Union Course of Instruction, which is one of 
the few successful attempts of an organized body of 
workmen to provide for the instruction of its mem- 
bers other than by apprenticeship. Also the prac- 
tical aid given to organized carpenters through the 
medium of their publication. The Carpenter. The 
third type of education by correspondence is that 
maintained at public expense and carried on by sev- 
eral universities, as, for instance, the University of 
Wisconsin. 

The financial success of private schools of corre- 
spondence, the wide-spread interest shown by the 
employees of private corporations for whom educa- 
tional opportunities are opened, the increasing pat- 
ronage of the university extension courses go to 
show the need for systematizing this form of in- 
struction, of making out of it a real vital force in 
education. All goes to show, moreover, the impor- 
tance of doing efficiently through public agency 
what is now done more or less inefficiently through 
private agency. 

That correspondence study and extension work 
may fulfill their greatest purposes and ends, the 
project system of instruction must be substituted 
for the course system of instruction which begins in 



EXTENSION WORK 239 

the kindergarten and avowedly ends only after nine- 
teen or twenty years of residence study — through 
the grades, the high school, the academic depart- 
ments of the university and the professional school 
—but which, rather, begins nowhere and ends no- 
where. The time is gone when men and women 
can wait twenty years to gather any of the economic 
fruits of education. Competition is too keen in all 
realms of endeavor. Results must approximate the 
immediate. Furthermore, the project system avoids 
the routine of an educational curriculum, which, we 
may believe, has stifled the ambitions of innumer- 
able young men and women merely because their 
progress was defined and limited by the progress of 
a group. Boys and girls who are able to do a given 
piece of work in three years quite as well as the 
group can do it in four, should be permitted to finish 
in the shorter time. The time standard in education 
is wrong altogether, but it is exceptionally perni- 
cious in correspondence work where progress is even 
more an individual matter than in the residence 
school. 

If we accept as settled the pronouncement that 
correspondence study and extension instruction are 
devised generally for the mature worker over 
eighteen years of age, to fill the gap between part- 
time education and unregulated and unsystematized 
home reading, we may next address ourselves to a 
consideration of means and methods. 



240 LEARNING TO EARN 

For industry, for business and for the home, the 
possibilities of training by correspondence are al- 
most limitless. In each case the city is the natural 
unit of instruction. Correspondence departments 
may be maintained as adjuncts of the trade school, 
the commercial school, the agricultural school, the 
school for home education. There is certain to be 
a mutual advantage in this arrangement, since, for 
instance, the school will have just one more avenue 
of approach to the shop, and to actual life in indus- 
try, and correspondence instruction may enjoy the 
immediate fruits of whatever readjustments the 
trade school suggests. This form of instruction 
may, therefore, dovetail into the established voca- 
tional school system and the instruction itself serve 
the purpose of the continuation school. The be- 
ginnings of industrial education by correspondence 
may be confined to a few leading industries, as, for 
instance, one of the hand trades. 

Suppose an industrial trade school in carpentry 
should undertake instruction by correspondence. It 
is to be assumed that the student not only knows 
first principles, but that in all likelihood he is equal in 
practise to the efficiency of the trade-school gradu- 
ate ; that he is already employed as a carpenter and 
earning wages as such. Without undertaking to 
lay out a course for such a student — a matter for 
the most expert carpenters — ^his instruction natu- 



EXTENSION WORK 241 

rally will begin where the vocational school leaves 
off. 

The University of Kansas maintains a "voca- 
tional course" given by correspondence for appren- 
tices and workers in the carpenter's trade that is 
suggestive. It consists altogether of one hundred 
and forty assignments — twenty each of shop math- 
ematics, architectural drawing and architectural 
design, and ten each of free-hand and mechanical 
drawing, elements of graphic statics, materials of 
building construction, bookkeeping and accounting, 
cost keeping for contractors, and two optional 
studies — machine drafting and the law of contracts. 

From the very nature of carpentry, so much a 
matter of expert handicraft, centers where personal 
assistance may be obtained and personal direc- 
tion given, are necessary. The establishment of 
such centers falls within the province of the trade 
school for carpenters. They should be maintained 
as a department of the carpenters' trade school. Ex- 
cept in the cases of the largest cities, a single center 
would be adequate for each trade, even though more 
than one trade school were found necessary. It 
may be found expedient to establish temporary cen- 
ters in industrial plants or on particular "jobs" 
where a considerable number of men pursuing their 
education by correspondence are employed. Peri- 
patetic instructors may be employed to advantage 



242 LEARNING TO EARN 

in these shifting centers, and it appears a very wise 
plan to have them visit men at work. 

In business training by correspondence, the 
commercial high school has a splendid opportunity 
to bring together in the commercial centers the 
young men just beginning a business career and 
men who have already attained success and who 
have a practical knowledge of business science and 
practise. Here will be found mature workers who 
have the most elementary training for business, and 
instruction by correspondence is the only means by 
which they may be reached. Instruction by corre- 
spondence, therefore, will comprehend the entire 
program of the commercial high school rather than 
follow it, as in the case of industrial education by 
correspondence and the industrial trade school. The 
most practicable centers for commercial training 
will consist of the associations already organized 
for practically every business. Every state and 
many of the larger cities have separate associations 
made up of retail grocers, retail hardware dealers, 
lumber dealers, manufacturers, ice dealers, electric 
railway managers, florists, coal operators, coal deal- 
ers, dairymen, laundry owners, hotel keepers, etc. 
Certain information and training is common to or 
needed by every business. To this extent, the ex- 
periences of the members of all business men's asso- 
ciations may be drawn upon for practical helps in 
formulating correspondence work and maintaining 



EXTENSION WORK 243 

the maximum effectiveness at the center of instruc- 
tion. As the chamber of commerce of the German 
city is the "godfather" of the German commercial 
school, so also must the chamber of commerce be 
the godfather of commercial education in America, 
including particularly the extension department. In 
many cases, men actively identified with the local 
chamber of commerce can be employed in directing 
capacities in education for business, both residence 
study and correspondence study. Perhaps educa- 
tion for business will always remain as a more altru- 
istic factor in civic life than business itself but this 
is only natural since the business man is apt to be 
more altruistic in addressing young students than 
in addressing a customer. 

In training for household science and manage- 
ment by correspondence, students may be brought 
into the vocational school centers as often as pos- 
sible for practical tests of efficiency. The admirable 
work done in training for home management by one 
or two private correspondence schools suggests how 
much greater progress may be made if this training 
is supplemented by occasional personal lectures or 
conferences and by practical demonstration work, 
for instance, in the class-room of the continuation 
or evening school. In the country these centers may 
be maintained in connection with the agricultural 
high school and the work administered somewhat 
after the plan of instruction by agricultural agents 



244 LEARNING TO EARN 

in the counties of many states. Whether the unit of 
instruction in household science and management by 
correspondence is the city, the single county, a group 
of counties or the state, is unimportant, except as 
the larger unit makes supplementary personal help 
more difficult. The territorial boundaries of the 
unit will depend upon the number of young women 
pursuing the work. 

So many different systems of disseminating in- 
formation about agriculture exist in the several 
states that a question arises in regard to the num- 
ber of centers for education by correspondence. 
Agricultural education by correspondence is de- 
signed to reach these persons remote from great 
centers, both mature and immature, to whom the 
agricultural high school is inaccessible and who have 
reached the age in life when greater efficiency, if 
achieved at all, must be achieved by home study. On 
the whole, it would seem that the agricultural col- 
leges which are engaged in pretentious extension 
work of other kinds are best equipped to make the 
beginnings in correspondence work. Through the 
corn clubs, canning clubs, potato clubs, agricultural 
and horticultural societies and breeders' associa- 
tions, many of which are already fostered by the 
land-grant colleges, correspondence study can be 
materially aided. Then there are the corn and 
wheat specials, the demonstration farms, the re- 
search laboratories and the farmers' institutes, 



EXTENSION WORK 245 

worthy extension enterprises in themselves, which 
may be employed as centers for gathering in home 
students as well as those who are not enlisted for 
regular study. While some of these forms of ex- 
tension work are designed and carried on especially 
for young men, it is not because older men are be- 
yond the subject-matter of instruction, but because 
only young farmers can be induced to take an active 
interest. 

The United States Department of Agriculture is 
doing a notable work in the publication of farm 
bulletins and in the gathering and distribution of 
information about crops. Much of this informa- 
tion, however, is badly prepared for the purpose it 
is to serve. Bulletins which specifically undertake 
to set forth the principles and practises of a given 
process too frequently fail because the language is 
vague in its meaning or capable of being understood 
only by those persons who already possess the given 
information and, therefore, have no use for the 
bulletin. Men who prepare these bulletins need to 
keep more closely in touch with actual farmers, and 
they need to understand the extent of ignorance 
about, say, pruning grapes when they begin to pre- 
pare a bulletin on this subject. Nevertheless, these 
bulletins are an invaluable aid to countless farmers 
and may be made up for greater service if rewritten 
by men in touch with active farmers through corre- 
spondence schools or part-time classee. 



246 LEARNING TO EARN 



No serious fault may be found with extension 
work in business, agriculture and household science, 
except perhaps that in agriculture, extension work 
is left too often to men who are merely scientists, 
not farmers at all. There is always a danger in such 
instances that agricultural extension work will lapse 
into a routine of formal exercises and lose its prac- 
tical significance. What farmers need is not so 
much information in regard to the management of 
the ideal farm, but information with regard to 
operating the farm as it is. The same applies to 
extension work in industry, business and the home. 

There are apt to be serious duplications in corre- 
spondence and extension work unless the adminis- 
tration of it is carefully planned. At the present 
time, many of the universities are doing essentially 
all grades of work for agriculture, for industry, for 
business and for the home. As far as possible the 
centers of correspondence study should approach 
the homes of the students that they may be within 
reach geographically. For this reason, the voca- 
tional school of relatively secondary grade should 
assume charge wherever and whenever its organiza- 
tion will permit the administration of another de- 
partment. But it may be several years before the 
system of trade, commercial, agricultural and home 
training schools will be sufficiently well organized 
to undertake a comprehensive educational program 
by correspondence and extension study, and until 



^ 



EXTENSION WORK 247 

that time the universities which have been first in 
the field may continue their work of secondary 
grade. Uhimately, they will have to confine their 
efforts in this particular to work of an advanced 
grade and by a system of intimate coopera- 
tion, act in an advisory capacity with educational 
centers of a lower grade. The university may also 
direct and guide the reading of thousands of young 
men and women remote from extension centers and 
thus connect up their home study with the opportu- 
nities available in near-by libraries. A great deal 
of the information collected by the federal bureaus 
and departments — the Department of Commerce, 
the Department of Labor, the Department of Agri- 
culture and the Department of the Interior — is not 
available to the mass of the people who need the 
information, since the great mass of the people 
hardly know that it exists. Moreover, the informa- 
tion will have to be reorganized to suit the needs 
of the people who are to use it, rather than to sat- 
isfy the statisticians and scientists who prepare it. 
Herein the universities may perform an important 
function not only in behalf of correspondence and 
extension study but in behalf of the vocational 
school, by which it is needed quite as much as by 
centers for extension teaching. 

For a great many years, it is important that no 
sustained effort be made to convert vocational edu- 
cation to a rigid system. Rather, its value during 



248 LEARNING TO EARN 

the initial stages will consist somewhat in its elas- 
ticity — in its not being a system. In this respect, 
the university may serve a useful purpose as a scout 
to determine the needs of workers in many fields; 
to formulate the educational data required to meet 
the needs and to develop the centers from which it 
may be imparted. 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE LIBRARY AND THE WORKER 

Part of the library in universal education — Printed matter is 
universal in scope — All classes should be served — Libraries 
weak on the vocational side — Useful arts departments success- 
ful — Branches in industrial and mercantile plants — Chicago's 
experience — The Marshall Field Store library — Practical value 
of correlated reading — Library for agriculture — Vocational 
guidance literature. 

The object of education is to fit men continu- 
ously to play their part in the world's work, ^y a 
process of formal schooling the child is instructed 
in the things which he should know before taking 
up life's work. If this education is properly ad- 
justed to his needs the transition from the work of 
the school to the work of the world is easy. He is 
doing real work before leaving school, and it be- 
comes merely a matter of emphasis whether the 
school or the world predominates. Gradually, the di- 
rect work with the school ceases and the pupil finds 
himself a full-sized unit in industry, agriculture, 
home or profession. He is trained to begin work, 
but must train himself for success and advancement. 

Experience is the largest factor in his future edu- 
cation. If, however, the school has impressed upon 
him that education is a process of continuous growth 

249 



250 LEARNING TO EARN 

he will seek constantly to enrich his experience with 
all the knowledge he can get from whatever source. 
Some may pursue education further by means of 
part-time schools, night schools and correspondence, 
but many will not pursue formal courses of instruc- 
tion at least for any great length of time. 

The supplementary education which most men 
will get after leaving school must come from indi- 
vidual study of books and other printed matter. A 
collection of books is the university of most men. 
The public library, with a wisely selected collection 
of books, has within itself the potential power of 
being the postgraduate institution for every human 
being within its reach. 

The school should aim to start the individual 
along the road and should graduate him into the 
public library, where many needs for his future 
self -education should be supplied. 

The library is the "great school out of school." 
It is at present practically the only means of educa- 
tion for the people beyond school age. The world 
of print supplies the potential needs of almost every 
man. No matter what the subject, there is material 
printed upon it, and this material ought to be avail- 
able for public use. 

The last few years have seen a revolutionary 
change in the breadth of printed matter. Whereas, 
formerly, books were for the learned, now, they are 
equally for the learner. Whereas, formerly, they 



THE LIBRARY AND THE WORKER 251 

supplied the needs of the professional man, now, 
they supply likewise the needs of the artisan, the 
farmer and the home-maker. Scarcely a profession 
or a trade or calling is followed which does not have 
its historical or technical literature. Print has ex- 
panded and is rapidly becoming universal in its use- 
fulness. 

The public library stands in a peculiarly advan- 
tageous position to become the universal university 
of men if it recognizes its social obligation and 
studies the needs of men in all walks of life, the 
industrial worker, the farmer, lawyer, doctor, home- 
maker, storekeeper and salesman. 

Speaking of the work of the public library in 
vocational education, the report of the Indiana Com- 
mission on Industrial and Agricultural Education 
said: 

"The public library has been efficient in meeting 
the demands made upon it, but it has not always 
been efficient in helping to shape the demands so 
that all people will be benefited. In response to the 
needs of club women and of the schools, the public 
library has developed those phases which will meet 
their demands. They have given ample attention 
to history, fiction, poetry, art and literature. No 
one doubts their efficient service in those fields. 
Again, in response to an evident and expressed need 
the library has brought business books to the service 
of business men. Likewise the doctor, lawyer, engi- 
neer, and other professional people have had their 



252 LEARNING TO EARN 

wants satisfied where expressed. But the industrial 
worker has not been reached because he has not 
been in a position to know that the Hbrary can do 
anything for him. There is a traditional belief that 
the library is a repository for the humanities, that 
it is primarily a place where the work of the world 
is forgotten in the calm of intellectuality. To such 
a place the average man does not repair. It makes 
no appeal to him. There is no point of contact be- 
tween it and his every-day life. Here is the library's 
opportunity. It must change the attitude of the 
industrial worker toward it by giving practical, 
every-day service. It can not wait until he comes 
to it, for not knowing, he will never come. It must 
go to him and show what it can do for him, not to 
interest him in a book of silly fiction, but to answer 
his trade questions in solving his daily problems. 
The library must first establish the connection, and 
the rest will follow as a case of practical certainty. 
"How can this be done? The library must first 
be equipped with the materials useful to industrial 
workers — books and pamphlets descriptive of the 
industrial processes, biography of industrial leaders, 
trade publications, labor union organs, technical 
journals, catalogs and anything else which may 
interest the tradesman. These, of course, should be 
adapted to the particular locality. If it is a town 
where a single industry predominates, the literature 
of that industry should predominate. If it is a place 
of wide diversification of industry, the scope of the 
library should correspond. The material should fit 
the practical needs of the average workers. It is 
useless to place on the shelves exhaustive treatises 
on mechanical engineering for ordinary machinists. 
There is a mass of literature on the processes of 



THE LIBRARY AND THE WORKER 253 

almost every trade, rich in inspiration and informa- 
tion if the Hbrary will only gather it and make it 
iiCcessible." 

The weakness of the library, as pointed out by 
the report, consists in its failure to provide literature 
of vocational worth. This is due partly to the 
want of demand for information, but largely 
to the lack of qualification on the part of the 
librarian. Librarians to a large degree are mere 
lovers of books. Such qualifications as they have 
are in the realm of literature, history and art. They 
have little technical or industrial knowledge and less 
sympathy with the industrial world. Few helps 
have been accorded them by guiding agencies. 
Library associations and state commissions give 
ample guidance for book selection in boys' and girls' 
stories, modern novels and in literature, art, history 
or social science, but provide slight guidance in the 
selection of books suitable for vocational workers. 

From lack of knowledge and guidance the selec- 
tion of books for trade workers, if made at all, is 
very generally unsuited to their needs. Thus one 
library announced that thereafter it would supply 
the workmen's needs. Then it proceeded to lodge 
upon the shelves ponderously technical books on 
mechanics and engineering which none but a pro- 
fessional engineer could read understandingly, much 
less use. The sponsors for the movement professed 
to be surprised that workmen did not flock to the 



254 LEARNING TO EARN 

library, the scheme was abandoned and the library 
settled back to its former silent composure, and 
righteous contentment reigned again. 

There is a mass of literature on the processes and 
history of almost every trade, rich in inspiration and 
information if the library will only gather it and 
make it accessible. Material useful to industrial 
workers, such as books and pamphlets descriptive of 
industrial processes, biographies of men who have 
made history in the industrial world, trade publica- 
tions, labor union organs, technical journals, 
catalogs of industries, material on political and eco- 
nomic questions of public concern should be gath- 
ered. The problem first to determine is what kind 
of material is needed for information and inspira- 
tion to the possible patrons of the industrialized 
library. The material, of course, should be adapted 
to the particular locality. The literature of local 
trades and industries should predominate. If men 
are engaged in the manufacture of furniture, their 
trade interests will be centered in furniture and their 
trade questions will relate to furniture. Trade 
workers in jewelry will need for their use literature 
relating to jewelry. Thus, the Grand Rapids library 
specializes in furniture, while the library of Provi- 
dence makes a specialty of books and magazines on 
jewelry. 

Comparatively little is being done in the cities of 
this country to vocationalize the library. The expe- 



THE LIBRARY AND THE WORKER 255 

rience of a few cities, however, gives proof of its ef- 
ficiency. The useful arts departments and branches 
of Cincinnati, Chicago and Pittsburg are a con- 
stant source of help to the workers. Their quar- 
ters are crowded, not with pleasure- or curiosity- 
seekers, but with interested men who seek to learn 
more scientific facts about the trade in which they 
work or who come to solve some specific problem. 
From the industrial departments of public libraries 
there is given to every man a constant invitation to 
find a way "out and up" by a broader acquaintance 
with the science upon which his trade is founded. 

The newest form of service and the most effective 
is the establishment of industrial branches of the 
public library in factories, stores and other estab- 
lishments. By this method workers in particular 
occupations are more readily reached. The prime 
purpose of these branches is to furnish the facilities 
for vocational knowledge close to the potential de- 
mand. The trade worker may never find the way 
to the reading rooms of the public library, and if he 
does he may be bewildered with the mass of books, 
but he can not fail to find and utilize any well- 
selected trade literature placed where he must pass 
it daily. His use of the material may be little or 
m.uch, but it is better than none at all. Some men 
are bound to establish the information-getting habit. 
Their efficiency is bound to be increased and their 
example would have its influence. 



256 LEARNING TO EARN 

In the industrial branches of Chicago's pubHc 
Hbrary there were circulated in the year ending in 
May, 1914, one hundred and sixty-eight thousand 
one hundred and ninety-two volumes. A very un- 
usual proportion of these books represented serious 
effort at education or practical use on the part of the 
readers. Several of the concerns where these 
branches are located in Chicago employ their own 
librarian, who is in the largest sense a vocational 
specialist. These librarians study the fields of work 
in which the employees are engaged and try to make 
the books selected function with the job. They 
engage in special reference work for the heads of 
departments and the executives and bring from the 
world of print collected in the city's many libraries 
the material which will serve business purposes. 
Such a librarian is thus a connecting link between 
the man or woman on the job and the source of 
useful information. 

The practical character of the work is reflected in 
the list of books borrowed from the public library 
for the use of employees. At the Marshall Field 
branch, which is conducted in cooperation with the 
store, the emphasis is laid upon material which sup- 
plies the needs of mercantile workers. Employees in 
this store borrowed during one month four thou- 
sand one hundred and eighty books, and among 
these books are such books of vocational worth as 
The Story of Textiles, The Sheraton Period, Deco- 



THE LIBRARY AND THE WORKER 257 

rative Styles and Periods, Advertising as a Busi- 
ness, Furniture of Our Forefathers, Electricity Sim- 
plified, Keramic Studies, Precious Stones, Book- 
keeping for Retailers, Magic of Dress, Porcelain, 
The Expert Waitress, Home Furnishings, Garden 
Planning, How to Live on Twenty-four Hours a 
Day and many others relating to the work of the 
retail store. 

In all of the work of the industrial and commer- 
cial deposit stations in Chicago the concern where 
the branch is located supplies quarters and equip- 
ment. The public library supplies the books and pro- 
vides research work on questions of busine^ in- 
formation or kindred topics. 

No doubt much of the effort of the library to 
awaken serious study will be fruitless. Laziness, 
indifference and dense ignorance can not be readily 
overcome, but here and there the library will sow 
seed which will eventually grow into a harvest. 
There are infinite possibilities for a public library to 
be a working factor in serving the men in the ranks 
who do things as well as the men who think things. 

The most effective kind of education is that which 
clenches theory with practise, making knowledge as 
such a living thing in the work of the day. The 
tradesman can learn more mathematics of his trade 
when he learns it in connection with his daily work 
than he can in weeks of unrelated theoretical study. 
Likewise the banker, clerk, salesman, bookkeeper. 



258 LEARNING TO EARN 

lawyer or other business man can learn the broader 
aspects of his business when the theory is learned in 
connection with daily practise. Most men have not 
had the opportunity to take formal courses of study 
while working, and to many the only opportunity 
that can come will be through the service of the pub- 
lic library. 

This service should not be limited merely to the 
industrial workers. All vocations are in need of 
correlated study and all can profit concretely 
through the agency of the library. The library is 
the focus of information. Its dragnet is out in all 
parts to gather practical knowledge for the use of 
artisans, lawyers, manufacturers, professors, doc- 
tors, business men, home-makers, in fact, every one 
with a mind capable of growth. 

Efficiency requires knowledge and there is no 
royal road to knowledge. "No man has ever known 
too much about anything, and the only safe way is 
to bring to bear upon the minutest problems of the 
day all the concrete knowledge of the world. There 
are two sources of knowledge — men and books — 
and efficiency is linking up the two. Books alone 
without capable and expert interpretation are likely 
to lead one astray because words and sentences have 
no fixity of value." ^ But, continues the same 
author, "There never was a time when business men 
were writing more about business and giving out of 



* St. Elmo Lewis in Special Libraries, May, 1913. 



THE LIBRARY AND THE WORKER 259 

their experience a more competent interpretation of 
the real lessons of that experience than they are to- 
day." 

The same may be said not only of business, but of 
every vocation and of every walk of life. Men are 
depending more upon the lessons of experience 
gained from print, and the corresponding duty and 
opportunity of the library is very great. 

The opportunity of the library which serves a 
rural community is no less important. The diffi- 
culties here are enhanced by the isolation of the 
workers, but on the other hand much of the material 
of great practical value is available free of cost^ If 
such a library did nothing more than acquaint its 
patrons with valuable studies of farm matters issued 
by the Department of Agriculture at Washington, 
the state experiment stations and agricultural col- 
leges, it would perform one of the needed services 
of the time. 

Vast stores of agricultural information of direct 
value to farmers are in print, but not in use. It needs 
the focusing process of a library and trained library 
workers to bring it to its proper application on the 
soil. The legislature of Texas had this in mind 
when in 1913 it provided for county libraries of 
agriculture wherever the people should so vote, the 
function of which would be to gather and be ready 
to furnish agricultural information to the farmers. 
The controlling features of these libraries, if rightly 



260 LEARNING TO EARN 

established, would be to serve as a clearing house of 
information on practical subjects. The farmer 
wants to know how to fight an insect pest, or to 
prevent diseases of live stock, or to raise a particular 
crop and to safeguard it against disease; he wants 
to know about transportation and markets, legisla- 
tion and public matters affecting his interests, and 
he is concerned about schools, roads and drainage. 
He can use a bureau of such information in practical 
fashion and the library should be in a position to 
supply it when he wants it. The newly-created 
county agents of agriculture in many states are the 
logical disseminators of such information, but they 
can not do it without a library to back them up. 

The library as a vocational counselor and guide 
may be made of tremendous social power. Noth- 
ing so much needs to be provided as the enlightened 
guidance of youth when they are choosing a career. 
The work of a lifetime often depends upon mere 
accident. Vocations are chosen without proper un- 
derstanding or knowledge. The schools are awak- 
ening, however, to their obligation in this respect, 
and this awakening means that the library must sup- 
ply printed information covering the opportunities 
and obligations in the hundreds of vocations into 
which the young people go. The library must fur- 
nish the guidance for the vocational counselor in 
order that the broadest counsels shall prevail. 

The world's literature is full of descriptive mate- 



THE LIBRARY AND THE WORKER 261 

rial of professions, trades and callings. Recent 
literature teems with discussions of the work of 
different vocations, the wages possible in them, the 
outlook for advancement and the prospect as a life 
career. In cooperation with the schools this should 
be brought to bear upon the acute problem of youth 
— that of the choice of a life's work. 

To summarize, then, the library is the principal 
source of instruction to practically all the adult 
workers. Practical literature to supply the needs 
of workers is in print and should be available to the 
workers, and the workers should be encouraged to 
see its advantages. Books should be adapted to the 
workers and function with the job in field, factory 
and office. Lastly, the library owes a social duty as 
a vocational guide and counselor. 



CHAPTER XIV 

VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE 

Occupational divisions — Educational effort is centered on the 
few — Jefferson as a vocational counselor — New conditions de- 
mand highly specialized training — Doctor Parsons' precepts 
in the selection of a vocation — Psychological aspects of voca- 
tional selection — Vocational guidance and conservation — Fu- 
tility of "compulsory education" — Purpose of vocational guid- 
ance — Economic loss from lack of trained workers — A wise 
choice of vocations is essential in a democracy — Protection of 
the child involves intimate acquaintance with conditions sur- 
rounding work — Aids to an industrial survey — Summary. 

There are about one hundred and fifteen thou- 
sand lawyers in the United States, according to the 
1910 census, about one hundred and fifty thousand 
physicians and surgeons, approximately one hun- 
dred and eighteen thousand clergymen and some- 
thing near sixty thousand civil, mechanical, electrical 
and mining engineers. Then there are about five 
hundred and twenty-five thousand school-teachers, 
and the group of artists, sculptors, musicians, nurses 
.and miscellaneous professional people, which, alto- 
gether, number about one and three-quarter million 
engaged in professional pursuits. 

It is this million and three-quarters people who, 
under our present educational system, are receiving 
largely from the state and at public expense a voca- 

262 



VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE 263 

tional education. They constitute less than five per 
cent, of the population over ten years of age engaged 
in gainful occupations. Moreover, they make up the 
bulk of that fraction of the population which re- 
ceives, from the public school system, any consider- 
able training for the occupation followed in after 
life. The training of school-teachers, except for 
those trained in normal schools and colleges, is not 
strictly vocational. Nor do all the lawyers receive 
their professional training in schools maintained by 
the state. Ministers are not educated vocationally 
at public expense. An accurate estimate would re- 
duce considerably below five per cent, the working 
population trained for their vocations whol^ or 
partially by the public school system. 

There are nearly thirteen million farmers who 
receive little if any specific education for agriculture. 
The same is true of the ten million persons engaged 
in manufacturing and mechanical pursuits; of three 
and one-half million engaged in trade and two and 
one-half million engaged in transportation. Our 
educational system, as far as it is possessed of voca- 
tional aspects at all, is maintained for the training 
of less than five per cent, of the population, prob- 
ably not more than three per cent. Farmers, indus- 
trial workers, commercial and transportation work- 
ers — constituting at least ninety-five per cent, of the 
population — derive little if any vocational benefit 
from public education. We are educating for their 



264 LEARNING TO EARN 

life-calling a few lawyers, a few physicians, a part 
of our school-teachers and engineers, training them 
for professions already overcrowded and in which 
the chances of success diminish as young men are 
attracted to them for want of anything else for 
which the public school system offers equal prepara- 
tion. 

We are doing all this and permitting ninety-five 
per cent, to drift aimlessly, possessed of scant train- 
ing and capable only of the lowest efificiency. 

Under our present system boys and girls, if they 
are to choose a vocation for which education in the 
public schools is of definite value, must select one 
from the narrow and overcrowded field of the so- 
called cultural pursuits — law, medicine, engineering 
or pedagogy. The proponents of vocational educa- 
tion propose to broaden the curriculum so that 
young men who want to be farmers, mechanics, 
business managers or directors will find equal in- 
ducements for training in the curriculum. When 
the curriculum has been thus broadened, there will 
be possible a real choice of a vocation. 

As a complement of the proposed system of voca- 
tional education a system of vocational guidance is 
advanced as a means to avert the chaotic distribu- 
tion of the workers, the overcrowding of a few 
vocations and the social unrest occasioned by the 
inefficiency or enforced idleness of a great section 
of the population. 



VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE 265 

"The greatest evils of a populous society," said 
Jefferson/ **have ever appeared to me to spring from 
the vicious distribution of its members among the 
occupations called for. I have no doubt that those 
nations are essentially right v^hich leave this to 
individual choice, as a better guide to an advanta- 
geous distribution than any other which could be de- 
vised. But when, by a blind concourse, particular 
occupations are ruinously overcharged, and others 
left in want of hands, the national authorities can do 
much toward restoring the equilibrium." 

Jefferson considered a ^'comfortable subsistence"^ 
as the first and most important end of a vocation. 
The movement for vocational guidance is fouijded, 
in part, upon the notion, which is gaining validity, 
that every man has a particular bent to a vocation 
which, if discovered and cultivated in a careful and 
painstaking process of education and training, will 
insure not only a "comfortable," but a happy sub- 
sistence as well. 

"It is very certain that no man is fit for every- 
thing," said Lord Chesterfield to his son. "But it is 
almost as certain, too, that there is scarce any one 
who is not fit for something, which something 
nature plainly points out to him by giving him a 
tendency and propensity to it. 

"Every man finds in himself, either from nature 



* Letter to David Williams, Washington edition, IV, p. 512 ; 
written from Washington in 1803. 

^ Thoughts on Lotteries, Washington edition, IX, p. 505 ; 
written from Monticello, 1826. 



266 LEARNING TO EARN 

ma* 

or education — for they are hard to distinguish — a 
peculiar bent and disposition to some particular 
character, and his struggling against it is the fruit- 
less and endless labor of Sisyphus. Let him follow 
and cultivate that vocation ; he will succeed in it and 
be considerable in one way at least; whereas if he 
departs from it he will at best be inconsiderable, 
probably ridiculous." 

Vocational guidance is a bit of new phraseology 
for a human institution that is very old. Pythag- 
oras sought to lead his disciples into ways of the 
"perfect life," an ideal based upon theological and 
metaphysical concepts of a world, every attribute of 
which yielded to mathematical formulae. Xeno- 
phon's teachings were meant to lead to a realization 
of the same ideal. Aristotle invented a state, the 
ideal of which was a citizenship based upon virtue. 
He described a complete system of education which 
he expected would produce a virtuous citizen. 
Farmers and mechanics were to be excluded from 
citizenship. In fact, Aristotle, while favoring in- 
struction in "useful subjects," thought "only those 
useful subjects ought to be taught which do not turn 
those learning them into craftsmen." 

It is a far call from the kind of vocational educa- 
tion proposed by Aristotle and the kind we are to- 
day proposing. In fact, we want a kind of voca- 
tional education that will turn a part of our people 
into craftsmen, only we want it to turn them into 



VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE 267 

efficient craftsmen. We are quite willing to take 
chances in the matter of producing a virtuous citi- 
zen if we can first make of the man a self-support- 
ing, efficient workman. Our present notion is that 
the man must be an efficient workman before he can 
be a good citizen — an ideal quite as worthy as that 
of the virtuous citizen. 

Present ideals in education do not at all square 
with the notions of Aristotle when he says : 

"We ought to look upon every employment, art or 
study which contributes to render the bodies, souls 
or intellects of free men unfit for the uses and prac- 
tises of virtue, as a craft. For this reason it i^that 
we call all those arts which lower the condition of 
the body crafts, and extend the terms to the money- 
making trades, because they preoccupy and degrade 
the intelligence." 

Aristotle does not seem to have been wholly ad- 
verse to education for business, although he believed 
that business was only a means to leisure. "If we 
must have both" (education for business and educa- 
tion for leisure), said Aristotle, "we must; but 
leisure is preferable to business, and our final in- 
quiry must be in what sort of employment we shall 
spend our leisure." However incongruous this 
notion of the vocations seems to be, it falls within 
the category of vocational guidance and it will have 
to be conceded that Aristotle, in his own way, was a 
vocational counselor. 



268 LEARNING TO EARN 

Nicholas Murray Butler has well expressed the 
basic conditions in society for which the whole pro- 
gram of vocational education is drawn up. He goes 
straight to the heart of this movement and presents 
the case as a comparatively recent development in 
our civilization, a program that has grown out of 
changed industrial and social conditions. In this 
he is quite correct. 

"At one time," he says,^ "when life was simpler, 
when the home counted for more, when there was a 
great deal of very admirable training of a manual 
and industrial kind to be had from the ordinary arts 
of the home, of the farm and of the shop, much that 
was practically helpful was done for the boy. This 
was, let us say, twenty-five or thirty years ago. But 
under our modern conditions of huge city communi- 
ties, of congested population and the highly special- 
ized character of all industrial work, unless one 
knows some particular thing, he knows nothing. 
The situation which confronts the boy or the girl of 
fourteen who leaves the elementary school and is 
forced to begin to take hold of life somewhere and 
somehow, to help to provide for the family liveli- 
hood and sustenance, is difficult and sad in the 
extreme." 

The present chaotic distribution of workers gave 
considerable impetus to the movement for a scien- 
tific scheme of vocational guidance. When it was 

•Address before the Commercial Club of Chicago, Dec 14, 
1912. 



I 



VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE 269 

seen that young men who had left the public schools 
were unable to find any remunerative work they 
might do, any means of earning a substantial liveli- 
hood, occasional effort was put forth to seek out 
places into which they might fit. Vocational guid- 
ance in this stage was possessed of little more scien- 
tific approach than mere employment bureaus. A 
few young men, however, profited by this elemen- 
tary form of vocational guidance. A few were 
enabled to find employment, who, otherwise, might 
have drifted from one inconsequential job to an- 
other. 

Vocational guidance means far more than Em- 
ployment agencies for young men. It means, first, 
a complete survey of industry — of all vocations — to 
determine for what occupations the specific training 
of young men is warranted. It means, secondly, a 
thorough examination of the tendencies and inclina- 
tions of each individual to determine for what occu- 
pation he is best fitted. 

The late Doctor Frank Parsons, who was director 
of the Vocation Bureau and Breadwinners' Institute 
of Boston, made the first modern experiments lead- 
ing to the present movement for vocational guidance. 
Parsons laid down* three broad factors in the choice 
of a vocation: (1) A clear understanding of your- 
self, your aptitudes, abilities, interests, ambitions. 



* Choosing a Vocation, p. 5. 



270 LEARNING TO EARN 

resources, limitations and their causes; (2) a knowl- 
edge of the requirements and conditions of success, 
advantages and disadvantages, compensation, oppor- 
tunities and prospects in different lines of work; 
(3) the true reasoning on the relations of these two 
groups of facts. 

Parsons sought to collect all personal data obtain- 
able; a self-analysis made up of answers to an im- 
posing list of questionnaires, the individual's own 
choice of a vocation and an independent analysis by 
the vocational counselor of heredity, temperament, 
natural equipment, face and character, educational 
experience and dominant interests. 

There was to be a classification of vocations and 
industries, showing the conditions of success in each, 
the apprenticeship systems in use, vocational schools 
accessible and employment agencies and opportu- 
nities. 

The third step in the work of the vocational coun- 
selor was to determine the exact relationship be- 
tween the first group of facts and the second. 
Always there was a doubt as to whether all the facts 
in the first group had been gathered and therefore 
whether the conclusions of the vocational counselor 
were correct. Doctor Parsons' methods were too 
much reliant upon empirical processes, too much de- 
pendent upon the impressionistic to be exact, and it 
was at this point that appeal was made to experi- 
mental psychology. 



VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE 271 

"The problem," says Hugo Miinsterberg,^ "ac- 
cordingly has been handed over from the vocational 
counselors to the experimental psychologists, and it 
is certainly in the spirit of the modern tendency 
toward applied psychology that the psychological 
laboratories undertake the investigation and with- 
draw it from the dilettantic discussion of amateur 
psychologists or the mere impressionism of the 
school-teachers. Even those early beginnings indi- 
cate clearly that the goal can be reached only 
through exact, scientific, experimental research, and 
that the mere naive methods — for instance, the fill- 
ing out of questionnaires which may be quite useful 
in the first approach — can not be sufficient for a 
real, persistent furtherance of economic life and of 
the masses who seek their vocations." 

What Miinsterberg says is all very true, except 
that there is no reason to wait until experimental 
psychologists have done their work before we under- 
take to use what facts we may gather by more or 
less empirical methods. Also, all the facts in the 
second group may be gathered now. In fact, ^PlSny 
industries already have been surveyed by the voca- 
tional counselor or for his use. No exhaustive 
study of the psychological processes of industry has 
yet been made, but there is no doubt this will be 
found to be quite as important as a study of the 
psychological processes of the individual mind. 
Miinsterberg himself says f "We must, indeed, 



^ Psychology and Industrial Efficiency, p. 43. 
' Ibid., p. 57. 



272 LEARNING TO EARN 



1 



insist on it that the interests of commerce and in- 
dustry can be helped only when both sides, the 
vocational demands and the personal function, are 
examined with equal scientific thoroughness." 

Miinsterberg has conducted certain experiments 
to determine the fitness psychologically of the indi- 
vidual for electric railway, ship and telephone serv- 
ice. The importance of a proper selection of electric 
railway motormen is seen in an annual expenditure 
of thirteen per cent, of the gross receipts of some 
roads for damages due to avoidable accidents. His 
experiments resulted in the rejection of one- fourth 
of the applicants for positions as motormen. Reac- 
tion time tests have been used in selecting girls for 
the inspection of balls used in ball bearings. In one 
instance thirty-five girls were obtained by careful 
examination psychologically who were able to do 
the work formerly done by one hundred and twenty 
girls. In the same case accuracy was increased 
sixty-six per cent., the working day was decreased 
from ten and one-half to eight and one-half hours 
and the profits of the factory increased. Experi- 
ments are now being made to test the fitness of 
stenographers and typists, and preliminary work has 
been done for the psychological testing of chauf- 
feurs, singers and marine officers. Recruits for the 
army, navy and marine corps and railroad employees 
have been subjected to examinations, closely approx- 



VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE 273 

imatlng the methods proposed for psychological 
tests of vocational fitness for many years. 

There are nearly ten thousand separate and dis- 
tinct occupations listed in the United States census 
reports, so that the work necessary to be done to 
determine what occupations warrant public school 
training and to establish tests for educational fitness 
seems monumental. As Ayres says :^ "It is true that 
only a part of the nine thousand three hundred and 
twenty-six gainful occupations are available to the 
children of any one locality. It is also true that the 
same sort of tests would undoubtedly serve for 
many different occupational examinations." ^ The 
same writer cautions against another fallacy. 

"We must remember/' he says,^ "that we are using 
a false analogy when we refer to fitting square pegs 
into round holes in talking of vocational misfits, for 
people and positions are both plastic, not rigid, and 
much mutual change of form often takes place 
without injury to either person or position." 

Vocational guidance is closely related in its incep- 
tion to another movement — conservation of our re- 
sources. It seems a bit strange, perhaps, that a 
strictly materialistic impulse has furnished any im- 
petus for the program of conserving the energies 

' Leonard P. Ayres, director of Division of Education, Rus- 
sell Sage Foundation : Psychological Tests in Vocational 
Guidance, paper read before organization meeting of Voca- 
tional Guidance Association, Grand Rapids, 1913. 

^Ibid, 



274 LEARNING TO EARN 

and talents of human workers, of directing them 
into the channels where they are best suited to go. 
Yet such is the case. Most humanizing movements, 
moreover, owe either thei/ origin or their progress, 
or both, to materialistic impulses, to commercial 
motives. 

We can scarcely wonder that the proposed scheme 
of scientific vocational guidance has found a ready 
response among all people, after we have marked 
the unwise choice of a vocation by numberless 
young men and women, temporarily infatuated with 
the traditions of a calling for which they were not 
at all adapted; the failure of the boy and girl, just 
out of the public schools, to find any lucrative voca- 
tion into which they will fit; the economic need of 
industry for employees who will fit efficiently into 
skilled work, and finally the limitless waste of ability 
from all these causes, due to untrained, undiscovered 
or misapplied energy. 

Orthodox school men were among the first to dis- 
cover the failure of the public school to hold the 
interest of the boy and girl until sufficiently mature 
to choose wisely a vocation. Accurate data show 
that not more than one in every ten who enter the 
elementary grades remain until the last year of the 
high-school course. Half the children drop out of 
school before finishing the eighth grade. The re- 
sponse to this discovery, feeble though it was, was 
a concession that a classical or so-called cultural 



VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE 275 

education does not meet the needs and dominant 
interest of nine out of ten boys and girls who leave 
before completing the high-school course of study. 

Compulsory education came into vogue partly as 
a vain attempt to stem the tide of "withdrawals" 
from the schools. Severe regulations of child labor 
operated as a further check. Yet the futility of 
these makeshifts is apparent. Authorities may lead 
the boy and girl to the trough of an impracticable, 
uninteresting and obsolete curriculum, but even they 
can not make the boy and girl drink. Boys and girls 
want the water of life, but they want it fresh from 
a fountain that flows freely with the spirit of tjjeir 
own times. 

The fact remains, therefore, that not one-third of 
the population proceeds far enough in our educa- 
tional system to be able to see, much less understand, 
the diversity of educational opportunity open to 
them. 

Some expect individual ambition to overcome the 
economic obstacles in a complex society, where a 
few boys are born very rich and a great multitude 
are born very poor, and where a very few emerge tri- 
umphantly in possession of the means to comfort 
and refined pleasure. The wide-spread distress, the 
"present class distinctions which already cleave soci- 
ety and wreck so many lives," the lack of wise lead- 
ership in an ever-spreading industrial crisis, are 
icffective rejoinders to this sort of argument. Ambi- 



276 LEARNING TO EARN 

tion is circumscribed by the vocational vision of the 
young man and young woman and vocational vision 
is limited by the territorial boundaries of a commu- 
nity all too small for the native talents of the individ- 
ual. There are hundreds of lucrative and pleasant 
occupations, one of which a young man might be able 
to fill with rare personal pleasure and satisfactory 
profit, about which he may never hear at all, or if 
he does, not until it is too late in life to undertake 
that work. 

"That handicap imposed by leaving school," said 
a writer in the American Journal of Sociology, 
"consists not merely of being deprived of a vantage- 
ground from which an appropriate vocational choice 
may be made, but also in the fact that such youth 
are almost certain to drift into inconsequential and 
totally uneducative tasks such as our society reserves 
as a heritage for the working boy." 

It is the "inconsequential and totally uneducated 
tasks" which Nicholas Murray Butler calls "uneco- 
nomic employment" and which he traces to a lack 
of adaptation to remunerative and efficient labor. 

"Uneconomic employment," he says,® "is almost as 
great an evil in its way as unemployment. It is not 
so serious, doubtless, for the individual who is em- 
ployed, even though waste fully and uneconomically ; 
but it is almost as bad as unemployment for the 

^Address before the Commercial Club of Chicago, Dec. 14. 
1912. 



VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE 277 

public as a whole, which in the one case will get no 
service at all from the individual who can not find a 
way to earn an economic reward, and in the other 
case is getting only a partial service for whatever 
economic reward is paid." 

It is the purpose of scientific vocational guidance 
to find the one occupation the individual boy may 
perform with credit, even though it be beyond the 
horizon of the young man's vocational vision at the 
time when he must go to work. 

Indiana has a new law which requires working 
certificates for children between fourteen and sixteen 
years of age for each position in which thev are 
engaged. The report of the Indianapolis Depart- 
ment of Attendance for 1913-14 shows very clearly 
how far untrained boys and girls fail to obtain sat- 
isfactory work. During the year working certifi- 
cates were issued to eight hundred and fifty-seven 
different boys and six hundred and fifty-three dif- 
ferent girls — a total of one thousand five hundred 
and ten persons between fourteen and sixteen years 
of age who had to quit school to go to work. Of 
this number one hundred and fifty-two boys and 
one hundred and twenty-seven girls obtained two 
certificates during the year, indicating that they held 
two different jobs. Forty boys and twenty-eight 
girls obtained three certificates, or held three differ- 
ent jobs. Ten boys and three girls obtained four 
certificates. Two boys and one girl obtained five 



278 LEARNING TO EARN 

each. Two boys received six certificates, and one 
boy, to quote a report made on part-time education, 
"had the distinction of getting seven different jobs 
for which he secured working certificates during the 
year." 

Of the eight hundred and fifty-seven boys who 
quit school to go to work, twenty-nine were under 
the sixth grade, two hundred and sixty-five were in 
the sixth grade, two hundred and thirty-eight in the 
seventh grade, one hundred and thirty were in the 
eighth grade and one hundred and ninety-five were 
above the eighth grade. The Indiana law requires 
the equivalent of a fifth-grade education before a 
working certificate is granted, and hence the number 
quitting school before the sixth grade is very small. 

The demand for trained workers in industry, 
business and agriculture is emphasized in other 
chapters. Likewise the great economic loss from 
lack of training, skill or native aptitude of the 
workers. Occupations and individuals both may be 
flexible, as Ayres says. Nevertheless, there is a sig- 
nificant waste of energy when individuals attempt 
to do work for which they are wholly unsuited by 
temperament, and this waste may be attributed to a 
lack of vocational guidance in our public schools. 

It is impossible to compute or approximately to 
guess at the economic loss due to the unwise choice 
of vocations, to the aimless drifting of untrained 



VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE 279 

boys and girls, and the want of trained workers in 
all branches of industry. 

It is not alone sufficient to establish a complete 
system of vocational education. We must also estab- 
lish a proper relationship between vocational educa- 
tion and industry and between the learner and our 
revised and revitalized educational system. This 
may mean a complete reorganization of industry to 
meet such conditions as the state is determined to 
fix as entrance requirements for the worker. It cer- 
tainly will mean radical departures in our curricu- 
lum. Perhaps it must be shot through with the idea 
that the life-career motive is to dominate everytl^Jng. 
We may find it necessary to do considerable experi- 
menting in the psychological laboratory, and the 
vocational counselor may be a somewhat expensive 
addition to the pay-roll of our public schools. We 
may find it necessary to make continuation and part- 
time schools universal. These schools may involve 
a strict supervision of certain industries by the state 
that "the child's future usefulness, not the present 
balance sheet, shall be the measure of the success of 
this guidance into vocations." 

The vocational instincts of the child, it is now be- 
lieved, may begin to be apparent at the age of twelve 
or fourteen, since a striking identity has been found 
between the occupational interests of certain chil- 
dren in the upper elementary grades and their occu- 



280 LEARNING TO EARN 

pational interests in later years. It is reasonably 
certain that every child begins to develop vocational 
interests not later than adolescence, and, while these 
interests may not be permanent, they will serve as a 
proper basis of education so long as they are domi- 
nant. 

Vocational guidance must not be a forced process. 
Nor does it consist merely in employment bureaus 
for young men and young women. To quote the 
report of the Bureau of Labor :^*^ "Vocational guid- 
ance does not mean selecting a pursuit for a child 
or finding a place for him. It means rather leading 
him and his parents to consider the matter them- 
selves, study the child's taste and possibilities, to de- 
cide for what he is best fitted and to take definite 
steps toward securing for him the necessary prepa- 
ration or training." Nicholas Murray Butler sets 
out the work of vocational preparation and guidance 
as "the problem of how to take this great mass of 
young people and to see to it that while they are 
beginning to learn life they shall learn it in some 
effective fashion, by making use of some talent, of 
some predisposition, taste, desire or need, in order 
that when they finally swing clear of the structure |j 
provided for their education and training they shall 
be able to stand up straight as self-supporting citi- 
zens and to do something and do it in a way that is 
economically worth while." 

^^ Twenty-fifth Annual Report, 1910, p. 411, 



VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE 281 

Obtaining work for the young worker may be a 
part of vocational guidance and may be carried on 
in connection with it. But this is only a limited 
phase of the wider effort. The vocational counselor 
who understands thoroughly the possibilities of a 
chosen vocation may instil in the young mind and 
heart a lasting passion for the vocation and an 
abiding love for everything that goes with it. No 
occupation chosen under the sanction of vocational 
guidance is without a wealth of inspirational mate- 
rial, without its peculiar idealism, which the voca- 
tional counselor must point out. 

The problem of vocational guidance is quite ^s 
complex as the industrial and commercial society in 
which we live, an altogether different problem from 
that of another era, when population was largely 
static and the son automatically chose his father's 
occupation. Vocational guidance is now an indis- 
pensable department of public education because 
education is to be made, in spirit and letter, thor- 
oughly democratic. As a consequence of vocational 
training, industry is to be shot through with democ- 
racy. Vocational guidance is to make of it an 
efficient democracy. 

Frank M. Leavitt^^ has stated that whatever may 
be the purposes of vocational education, from the 

" Frank M. Leavitt, Associate Professor of Industrial Edu- 
cation, University of Chicago ; address before National So- 
ciety for Promotion of Industrial Education, Seventli Annual 
Meeting, Grand Rapids, 1913 ; Bulletin i8, p. 122. 



282 LEARNING TO EARN 

standpoint of vocational guidance, the state can have 
but one interest or one concern, and that is the wel- 
fare of the individual child. Vocational guidance 
demands that public educational agencies have at 
their disposal the career of the child from the age of, 
say, five to the age of eighteen, or better, twenty- 
one, years. It is a tremendous responsibility — the 
care of the child during the period of transition 
from school to work, yet one which vocational guid- 
ance as a conscious and positive factor in the new 
educational program can not well escape. It in- 
volves a complete knowledge of the world's oppor- 
tunities for service, the moral consequences of the 
school and work, an intimate acquaintance with con- 
ditions surrounding each occupation and, more than 
all else, the social and civic conditions and conse- 
quences of work. 

Vocational guidance must depend for its informa- 
tion and insight somewhat upon private voluntary 
associations and public agencies already in existence. 
The National Child Labor Committee has collected 
and tabulated important information showing the 
extent of child labor in every important industry, 
and for the purpose of conserving our human re- 
sources, the resources of our children, this informa- 
tion may be used in formulating the constructive 
program of the vocational guidance movement. In 
this connection the reports of the Census Bureau, the 
state departments of labor, the Department of Com- 



VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE 283 

merce and the factory inspection bureaus are inval- 
uable. 

"When the best possible adjustment shall have 
been attained between work and workmen," says 
Doctor Ayres/^ "each one will have his full oppor- 
tunity to achieve at least something for common 
wealth and common weal. The tasks of the world 
will be better done and the workers will receive 
greater rewards, deeper joy, and fuller satisfaction 
in their doing." 

To sum up: An insignificant percentage of our 
working people receive scientific training for efficient 
service. Some professions are badly overcrd^ded 
because in them only has a scientific approach been 
developed. We have proposed a system of education 
for efficient service which we call vocational, a sys- 
tem founded on the native prepossession of the in- 
dividual to a particular calling, with certain peculiar 
limitations we may call external. Those external 
limitations are the conditions patent to certain 
trades, industries or callings which make it inadvis- 
able for young men to engage in them. At this 
point we are to have the cooperation of the voca- 
tional counselor, who is to assist young men in the 
choice of a life calling. From facts gleaned by 
surveys, the vocational counselor is to point out 
the vocational opportunities disclosed by surveys, 

" Address before organization meeting of Vocational Guid-' 
ance Association, Grand Rapids, 1913. 



284 LEARNING TO EARN 

together with disadvantages and drawbacks. With 
the assistance of the vocational counselor and the 
sympathetic direction of parents and teacher, we 
shall be able to steer boys away from occupational 
blind alleys and into wholesome remunerative em- 
ployments. Whatever the psychological laboratory 
can contribute to successful vocational guidance we 
shall also use. In the main, after having pointed 
out occupational limitations and opportunities, the 
young man will be left chiefly to a free choice. 
When the possibilities of this program have been 
fully realized, we shall have realized also the great- 
est possibilities of the conservation movement, the 
conservation of human energy and talents. 



CHAPTER XV 

TRAINING OF TEACHERS 

Lack of trained teachers for vocational work — Need of prac- 
tical experience — Experience in teaching and experience in 
life — Prejudice to be overcome — Wasted efforts from unedu- 
cated and inefficient teachers — Various plans for training 
teachers — The present public-school teacher is not equipped 
for instruction in agriculture, the skilled trades or household 
arts — Active business men may be drawn upon for teaching 
in commercial schools — Shortcomings of the rural teachers — 
Only one in five teachers is trained — How sociological sur- 
veys may widen the vision of the untrained teacher — Simnmer 
schools, correspondence schools and extension work as sup- 
plemental aids. 

If it is admitted that vocational education is to be 
undertaken as a definite concrete program for the 
future, then administrators must look naturally to 
means and methods. There is the question of dual 
or unit control of our present so-called liberal 
scheme and the proposed occupational scheme, which 
we consider a matter dependent largely upon local 
conditions and therefore not fundamental, and with 
which we do not here deal, except to say that what- 
ever the faults or failures of liberal education, it 
ought not to fail wholly as a source of ideals for 
the new model. There are the problems of occupa- 
tional surveys, of subject-matter and text-books 
which may be dealt with intelligently and wisely, if 

285 



286 LEARNING TO EARN 

only we are able to enlist capable teachers, men and 
women fired with enthusiasm, surcharged with tech- 
nical information and endowed with native prepos- 
sessions for imparting information. 

"There is great danger," as Charles A. Prosser 
says,^ "that our enthusiasm for vocational schools 
will lead us to establish them faster than we are able 
to secure teachers possessing not only the academic 
and technical education, but also the practical experi- 
ence necessary in order to carry on the work success- 
fully. There is danger that in some quarters, at 
least, the regular school men will attempt to deal 
with the educational needs of the wage-earner by 
the application of a philosophy of education through 
a traditional method and a time-honored course of 
study, when it is all too apparent to the practical 
man of affairs that in order to equip him to meet the 
demands of industry we must give the worker the 
skill and the knowledge which he can apply directly 
in his work ; and when it is all too plain to those who 
know the worker best that in order to reach him 
with our training we must use his experience on the 
job as the means of teaching the applied mathe- 
matics, science, art technique and economics that will 
make him a better workman and a better citizen." 

It should be recognized at the outset that the 
problem of obtaining teachers for the reorganized 
program in education divides itself into three sep- 
arate and distinct problems — one is to obtain teach- 

* The Training of the Factory Worker Through Industrial 
Education, p. 18. 



TRAINING OF TEACHERS 287 

ers for the prevocational schools; the second is to 
obtain teachers for the vocational schools proper and 
the third to obtain teachers for continuation, eve- 
ning and part-time schools, extension courses and in- 
struction by correspondence. It seems altogether 
possible for teachers trained under the system now 
generally extant, with some special study of aims, 
program and method of the occupational interests, 
granted a native sympathy for the work, to make the 
beginnings, at least, in the prevocational work. Ex- 
perience will soon demonstrate how well they meas- 
ure up to the new opportunity. As regards the 
vocational school proper, the problem is far^more 
difficult. Here teachers must possess not only a high 
order of technical skill, but must know how to im- 
part it. For industrial trade schools, teachers should 
be drawn from among the most highly skilled work- 
ers in the respective trades and difficulty is bound to 
be encountered in the difference between what skilled 
workers receive in following their trade and what 
their initial wages as teachers might be. 

School administrators should know at the outset 
that the services of such workers as teachers are 
worth far more to society than they can possibly be 
worth to industry, whatever the wage may be. As 
far as possible the teachers in vocational schools of 
whatever kind, for industry, for business, for the 
home and for the farm, should be drawn from men 
and women of practical experience. Nor is it suf- 



288 LEARNING TO EARN 

ficient that they merely shall have had practical 
experience at the beginnings of their careers as teach- 
ers. If trade teachers, they should be required to 
spend a portion of their time, at least every two or 
three years, in actual pursuit of the trade. The same 
requirement should be set up for teachers in com- 
mercial schools, agricultural schools and schools for 
instruction in home economics, household manage- 
ment and domestic science. Agricultural teachers 
ought to be farmers first and teachers afterward. 

Teachers for continuation, evening and part-time 
schools, extension and correspondence courses, while 
requiring the very highest order of skill and tech- 
nical knowledge should be more available since this 
work is already fairly well begun by various private 
and public agencies and for the further reason that 
teachers of part-time or extension courses need not 
abandon their private pursuits, but may approach 
the student for part-time or extension courses with 
problems that arise day by day in their own personal 
business. It must not be forgotten that part-time 
courses and extension courses especially are de- 
signed for workers who have had some practical ex- 
perience and it is therefore imperative that teachers 
for this work be possessed of the very greatest prac- 
tical skill and the broadest technical knowledge. 
Some of the well advertised directors of agricultural 
extension work are made to appear ludicrous when 
face to face with actual rather than imaginary farm 



TRAINING OF TEACHERS 289 

problems. Vocational extension work must not be 
discredited by dreamers. Some German states, 
Wiirttemberg for example, refused to establish vo- 
cational schools at all until a sufficient corps of 
teachers had been prepared previously for the work. 

Of course, vocational teachers need to be pos- 
sessed at the outset with native intelligence of a 
high order, a good academic education and a pleas- 
ing personality. In fact, these qualities are de- 
manded of all teachers. But vocational teachers 
must be especially experienced in the art, trade or 
occupation which they are engaged to teach. If 
they are industrial or agricultural teachefs, they 
must be skilled in the latest processes and practises 
of the vocation and capable of commanding the re- 
spect of the men actively engaged. Not only this, 
but they must know enough to contribute to the so- 
lution of the unsolved problems of the industry, 
particularly if they are employed in the strictly vo- 
cational school or if engaged in extension work 
with mature persons of practical experience. 

Until the boy has reached the fifth or sixth grade, 
his learning is comparatively routine. It consists in 
learning how to read, write and perform the simple 
operations in arithmetic. But arithmetic especially 
may be made practical from the first. Arithmetic 
may be made a matter of "object" teaching from the 
simplest to highest processes. After the boy has 
reached the fifth or sixth grade, his teacher is going 



290 LEARNING TO EARN 

to determine with what spirit he later enters the vo- 
cation to which the community Hfe will call him. 
After this age, it is highly important that the teacher 
know as much about all phases of life as it is possi- 
ble to know. 

Professional educators lay great stress upon ex- 
perience in teaching. Experience is important, but 
what is needed as the complement of experience in 
teaching is experience in life; experience with all 
kinds of life; experience, if possible, with many vo- 
cations, and intimate friendships with people in all 
walks of life, the professional man, the railroad 
man, the factory worker, the social service worker, 
the trade union leader, the department store clerk, 
public officials,, perhaps a few ward bosses in the 
city, writers and lecturers. It would be a splendid 
thing for a young man, especially if he is going to 
teach in the country, to know a few "down-and- 
outers," a hobo or two who have been made so by 
that side of city life which the first glamour does not 
reveal. It is unfortunate that geography must be 
taught by young men and women who have not 
journeyed beyond the confines of their native county 
or state, who have not beheld the grandeur of the 
mountain, the majesty of great rivers and limitless 
expanse of the sea. This is unfortunate, but less so 
than to charge the young man who can't drive a 
nail straight with teaching carpentry. 

This is the experience that counts. It is the kind 



TRAINING OF TEACHERS 291 

of experience that would count most of all in our 
rural schools if it were possible to get teachers who 
possess it. Since we can not do that, or very near it, 
we shall have to depend upon training schools to im- 
part the information and instil the sympathy. Very 
much, therefore, depends upon the kind of teachers 
who direct the activities of the teachers' training 
schools. They must be more than mere book worms, 
more than mere theorists, more than mere automa- 
tons. And they will be all of these and nothing more 
unless they keep in constant personal touch with the 
social, political, religious and economic conditions of 
that part of the country for which they are train- 
ing teachers. But it is not sufficient to say that rural 
school-teachers must be trained for effecting an ad- 
justment to these conditions. They must be trained 
to direct the vocational instincts of country boys, to 
inspire them with an overpowering love for work, 
to impart definite practical knowledge for growing 
maximum crops, and doing everything that may be 
don^ on the farm in the very best way. 

It is extremely doubtful whether the average 
teacher in the public schools is keenly in sympathy 
with vocational education and he must not be per- 
mitted to distort its purposes, even in the prevoca- 
tional stage, by drawing upon subject-matter which 
has no relation to life. Upon teachers already em- 
ployed in the public schools must fall the initial 
responsibility of giving prevocational instruction. 



292 LEARNING TO EARN 

If they fail to measure up to the initial responsi- 
bility, they will have to look to the period of their 
tenure. Teachers who complain about vocational 
education do so principally because they may 
have something new to learn, a different point of 
view to acquire. They regard vocational education 
as a reflection against their ability, or their vision 
or their long and "successful" records as teachers 
and, so believing, are apt to oppose the movement 
or secretly resist its encroachments. Teachers who 
can see no more in the movement than an attack 
on time-honored principles and methods are not ex- 
ceptional in their bristling attitude of self-defense. 
The movement has its origin outside the profession 
for the most part. Do not surgeons scorn the cru- 
sade of publicity against vivisection and lawyers re- 
sent the layman's attacks on the courts? Does the 
manager welcome suggestions by the "straphanger" 
as regards the operation of a street railway? Of 
course, many teachers complain. They are quite as 
human as surgeons or lawyers or street railway man- 
agers. But they have definite duties to perform 
under a reorganized and rejuvenated educational 
program and duties they can easily perform if they 
only determine to meet them fairly and honestly. 
Even though the burden may be additional, it is good 
for teachers and for the public schools that it be as- 
sumed. It ought to be done cheerfully. 

When the teaching of agriculture first was at- 



TRAINING OF TEACHERS 293 

tempted in this country, instruction was left to teach- 
ers who had no special fitness whatever for the 
work. Such efforts were worse than useless because 
the pupil's native interest in agriculture was in 
danger of being neutralized by ignorant and ineffi- 
cient instruction. Agriculture is a subject which 
demands rather wide technical knowledge of the 
teacher in the vocational school proper as well as 
native sympathy and practical experience, and it 
were better to postpone instruction indefinitely than 
to leave it to teachers whose only preparation is ob- 
tained from keeping a few pages ahead of the class, 
in a prescribed text-book. As a matter of fad, agri- 
cultural education in most public schools still re- 
mains inefficient and unscientific as compared to 
what it may become under competent teachers. 
Teachers who know nothing of the science of agri- 
culture should be spared from any serious effort at 
instruction. 

What is true of the teaching of agriculture is true 
of vocational education generally. Incompetent 
teachers will surely bring discredit upon the whole 
system if they are permitted to defile it, or distort 
it into the narrow channels of traditional methods 
used by the teacher of the so-called cultural sub- 
jects. 

Two things are demanded of the teacher in the 
vocational school, part-time instruction and e:xten- 
sion courses, and they should be required without ex- 



294 LEARNING TO EARN 

ception by school officials whose duty it is to select 
teachers of 'vocational subjects. One is technical 
knowledge of the subject and the other is practical 
experience in using that technical knowledge. As a 
matter of choice, the practical farmer who has made 
a success of that calling is better equipped to teach 
agriculture than the boy or girl who is able only 
to make a passing grade on questions taken from a 
text-book that has been learned by rote. Likewise, 
the practical carpenter will be a more successful in- 
structor in woodworking than the high-school grad- 
uate armed with all the books published on the 
subject. 

There is no intention to underestimate the value 
of pedagogy in vocational education, especially in 
the vocational school. It is valuable except, as be- 
tween method and practical experience, there can be 
no choice. The ideal teacher of vocational subjects 
is one who has had enough native interest to follow 
the vocation as a matter of choice and who has sup- 
plemented that practical experience with training 
provided for teachers of that subject. 

For industrial trade schools and schools of 
household arts already created, there are teachers 
available to supply only a small percentage of the 
demand. Training schools need to get hold of com- 
petent journeymen who are best fitted for responsible 
positions. The wages must be made sufficiently re- 
munerative to attract men who are already skilled 



TRAINING OF TEACHERS 295 

artisans, because they only are fitted to teach indus- 
trial processes, effectively. 

The State Normal School at Albany, N. Y., main- 
tains a night school for the training of trade 
teachers. After some experimenting, fifteen practi- 
cal workmen were chosen for a night course for 
teacher training. The minimum requirement of 
practical experience was Byq years in addition to 
apprenticeship. Four trades, pattern making, cabi- 
net making, metal working and machine work, were 
taught. The class met twice a weSk, on Tuesday and 
Thursday evenings, from seven to nine thirty o'clock. 
The course lasted forty weeks. Shop work, dmwing, 
shop mathematics and the principles of teaching 
were taught. The school sought to show by 
example how to deal with immature and unskilled 
students and the candidates were required to as- 
sume the attitude of green apprentices and go over 
simple processes in the same manner as they would 
be presented to beginners. The professional work 
included the principles of teaching; the necessity of 
outlining and the principles of planning work; ar- 
rangement of the course of study and the use of 
equipment ; the correlation between the different de- 
partments of the school; the price of materials; 
method in recitations and examinations; the use of 
records and efficiency cards and other practical de- 
tails of the work. 

The Federal Commission on Vocational Educa- 



296 LEARNING TO EARN 

tion recognized fully the need of practical experi- 
ence as the basis of preparation required of the 
vocational teacher. Section 12 of the bill pending 
in Congress prescribes how the several states may 
receive the benefits of the appropriation for train- 
ing vocational teachers. These training courses must 
be approved by the state board, which in turn is ac- 
countable to the federal board. The bill provides 
that "such training shall be given only to persons 
who have had adequate vocational experience or 
contact in the line of work for which they are pre- 
paring themselves as teachers, supervisors, or direct- 
ors, or who are acquiring such experience or contact 
as a part of their training." 

The Federal Commission believed the problem of 
obtaining an adequate supply of vocational teachers 
"must be worked out by gradual experiment in part- 
time and evening classes which afford opportunities 
for persons who possess skill in their callings to 
acquire experience in the classroom and shop instruc- 
tion while still continuing their regular employment." 
The Commission was not favorably impressed 
with the present normal-school facilities for train- 
ing industrial teachers, "At the present time," 
said the Commission, "not a half dozen schools exist 
in the United States which afford an adequate op- 
portunity to secure thoroughgoing preparation for 
the teaching of trade and industrial subjects." Yet 
there are more than three hundred colleges and uni- 



TRAINING OF TEACHERS 297 

versities in the country that maintain teachers' train- 
ing departments. 

"Our vocational schools," says David Snedden, 
". . . must be taught by persons whose first quali- 
fication is to be found in their mastery of a craft and 
who have somewhere added to this same mastery 
the art of directing learners and of imparting knowl- 
edge. . . . Teachers of printing must first have 
been printers; of plumbing, plumbers; of farming, 
farmers; of jewelry design, jewelry workers; and 
so through the long list of vocations for which prac- 
tical school training is now an admitted possibility." 

The present public-school teacher is not fit^d to 
teach the skilled trades and household arts to girls, 
generally because she knows little of either. She 
knows nothing about trades and the life of the 
woman worker in a trade. She may know something 
about the processes of household arts without being 
really educated in the art, in which case she may 
train girls to be excellent cooks or clever seam- 
stresses without imparting inspiration and love for 
the science of food preparation and the art of 
hand-made and home-made clothing. There is not 
much to be gained from the household economics 
which has no wider vision than palatable food and 
neat clothing, desirable as both are. In trade-school 
teaching for girls, the woman who has experience 
only is liable to have acquired prejudices on social, 
economic and industrial questions which wholly un- 



298 LEARNING TO EARN 

fit her for the position of a teacher. It is better to 
avoid all such questions until such time as the stu- 
dent may sift opinions for herself. While the pres- 
ent public-school teacher is too much disposed to 
academic methods, the trade worker without prep- 
aration for teaching as a vocation is apt to be too 
little disposed to follow the processes of the learner's 
mind. 

Teachers in girls' trade schools should be broad- 
minded, intelligent and experienced, but they should 
understand the principles of teaching. They should 
be familiar with the household arts, health and hy- 
giene, academic and art education in the trade, busi- 
ness organization and shop management. They 
should be informed, without being possessed of vio- 
lent prejudice, on social and industrial questions of 
interest to women workers in many industries. Prac- 
tical teaching in practise schools will assist the 
young woman skilled in the trade to become an effi- 
cient teacher. Teachers should keep in constant 
touch with trade conditions and new processes 
whether their students be boys or girls. 

In commercial education, the division of work 
logically leaves to the public-school teacher, whose 
education and training are remote from the needs 
of business, the duty of imparting prevocational in- 
struction. While the present corps of teachers may 
fail woefully at the outset, a diligent effort to be- 
come acquainted with present-day needs of business 



TRAINING OF TEACHERS 299 

will enrich the life of the teacher and greatly re- 
lieve the monotonous routine in his daily program 
of instruction. It seems reasonable to believe that 
the public-school teacher may become efficient alto- 
gether in the preliminary training for business if 
only his point of view is changed. 

There are probably less than twenty thousand 
teachers in the United States devoting all or a part 
of their time to commercial instruction in public and 
private schools. Most of the number have been 
poorly trained, yet they are mature men and women 
and it is impossible for them to quit teaching and 
complete their training. Upon this group, alftiough 
deficient except in the mechanical processes of 
business, we must depend for our teachers during 
the beginnings of commercial education. This 
group of teachers and those who are to take 
their places may continue their training in summer 
schools and by correspondence study. Here again, 
as far as we are able to attract them, men of actual 
business experience must be induced, as a public 
duty, to give instruction in the commercial schools. 
In the city, business managers can be induced to 
give short lecture courses from which regularly em- 
ployed teachers may learn quite as much as pupils. 

As in industrial trade schools, as far as possible, 
commercial teachers should be drawn from men of 
actual experience — experience in the business world 
about them. They will be difficult to obtain, but they 



300 LEARNING TO EARN 

will accomplish so much more. In the advanced work 
of commercial education, in the schools of univer- 
sity grade, and in continuation, part-time and ex- 
tension courses, teachers must be men and women 
of the widest practical experience, else they can ac- 
complish nothing. They will have nothing to inter- 
est mature students of more or less experience 
themselves. 

"There has never been a time when there has 
seemed to be such a necessity for teachers in all 
kinds of schools to lay formalism aside, as now. 
Teachers so frequently feel that their position is not 
one of business, but a profession; not in the sense 
in which a profession is usually understood, but a 
fancied notion of it, which prevents them from en- 
tering into and becoming factors in the great busi- 
ness world. This results sometimes from a fear on 
the part of the teacher that his views will not please 
every one, and that he may not be able to hold his 
position. Better lose it than be a mere satellite. 
Teachers must be men and women of ideas, because 
the business world needs such. These, however, can 
not be obtained without broad culture. Teachers 
must be men and women who are not afraid to enter 
into the business interests and share the burdens of 
the community. They must be known as workers, 
not merely in the 'teachers' sense,' but as energetic, 
enthusiastic forces thoroughly imbued with the idea 
that work, incessant work, is the price of success. 
*He who saves his life will lose it, and he who loses 
his life will save it.' Teachers must constantly keep 
growing, because the business methods of ten years 



TRAINING OF TEACHERS 301 

ago are not the business methods of to-day, any 
more than the text-books of ten years ago are the 
text-books of to-day."^ 

The training of rural teachers is in part a prob- 
lem in itself. It is fraught with peculiarities to the 
rural community and can not be solved except by 
those who have a thorough understanding of and 
sympathy with conditions of life in the country. No 
statistics are available to show what percentage of 
boys in the country schools become farmers, but the 
percentage is large and it is agriculture that must 
determine the curriculum for the rural school. The 
exceptional boys in the country schools who have a 
bent for vocations in the city may be assigned out- 
side work by teachers who recognize that bent 
and are able to direct it in proper channels. 

The trouble with country teachers, even urban 
teachers for that matter, is that they do not under- 
stand life. It is doubtful whether a more S3^mpa- 
thetic view of the possibilities of the farm can be 
acquired than by living for a while in the city. Thus, 
the ideal rural teacher would be a person sufficiently 
mature to have obtained from living in the city an 
accurate estimate of its sociological conditions. He 
would, therefore, be the more likely to understand 
the exceptional opportunities offered in these days 
for wholesome and happy life in the community 



H, B. Brown, President Valparaiso University. 



302 LEARNING TO EARN 

where he teaches or else throw the weight of his in- 
fluence and power into a locaHzed movement to 
change conditions in the community. 

There is no more unfortunate situation than is cre- 
ated by the young man in charge of the rural school 
and upon whom must rest the responsibility of pre- 
vocational instruction in agriculture, who has seen 
a little of the glamour of city life and has missed 
its seamy side and who arouses a spirit of discon- 
tent and longing for city life in the immature minds 
which he is molding. Country life has boundless 
possibilities and the rural teacher, somehow, must 
know what they are and be able to impart an under- 
standing of them. If he is a young man, or woman, 
who has been reared in the neighborhood, he is far 
more likely to understand and appreciate at their 
full worth these possibilities if he has also been per- 
mitted to struggle against the current of competi- 
tion in the city. 

Rural schools have suffered from the tendency of 
the better teachers to seek employment in the cities, 
not only because these teachers were lost to the com- 
munity where they were badly needed, but because 
they unconsciously left behind them that spirit of 
discontent with what the country has to offer and 
which is largely responsible for the unchecked move- 
ment of population from the country to the city. 

There were about five hundred and twenty-three 
thousand public-school teachers in the United States 



TRAINING OF TEACHERS 303 

in 1912. The graduates of teacher-training courses 
in the colleges, universities, state normals, county 
training and high schools numbered about twenty- 
three thousand in that year. Since the average serv- 
ice of the public-school teacher is about five years, it 
follows that not more than one in every five teach- 
ers in 1912 was a trained teacher. For the four out 
of five teachers who were not graduates of teachers* 
training schools, the want of preparation undoubt- 
edly fell most heavily on the rural schools whose 
standard for teachers has never been so high as that 
of the city schools. 

For want of a full life experience, perhap* the 
best training that may be given for prevocational 
teachers of agriculture is that of making sociological 
surveys of the rural district or township. These 
surveys may include the collection of facts bearing 
on the character of population, economic, social and 
educational conditions. 

Certain facts relative to the population may be 
easily gathered : the percentage of urban and rural 
population; percentage of colored and native bom; 
whether increasing or decreasing and why; number 
of inhabitants per square mile and number of illiter- 
ates. 

The survey of economic conditions should set 
forth the natural resources, mineral and vegetable; 
chief products, including manufactured products, 
crops for market and for home consumption; num- 



304 LEARNING TO EARN 

ber and size of farms, percentage of owners and 
tenants; percentage of wage-earners; average an- 
nual wage ; increase or decrease in land values, farm 
crops, live stock and machinery and sources of food 
and clothing. 

The survey of social conditions should reveal the 
forms of recreation, including athletics, dances, 
motion picture shows, pool rooms, lecture courses, 
literary societies, picnics, secret and fraternal organ- 
izations; means of transportation and communica- 
tion; moral conditions including tendencies toward 
criminal practises and sanitary conditions. 

Among the facts which should be gathered in the 
educational survey are the community interest in 
school buildings, the use of school buildings for 
community gatherings, amount of schooling re- 
ceived by the average individual in the district ; pu- 
pils who have left school before completing the 
course, and why ; public and private libraries ; num- 
ber and character of magazines taken and read in 
the district. 

These suggestions are given to those rural teach- 
ers who want to undertake a survey and because 
they are used as the basis of surveys in teachers' 
training schools. Surveys similar to this one have 
been made by the Georgia Club at the State Normal 
School at Athens. The president of this club gives 
the following description of its work :^ 

^ See Bulletin No. 23, 1913, United States Bureau of Educa- 
tion. 



TRAINING OF TEACHERS 305 

"The club is composed of one hundred and forty- 
one volunteers from the faculty and student body. 
Spare time is used by individuals and county groups 
for work upon special chosen topics; and one hour 
each week is given to club discussions. 

"For two years the club has been studying the va- 
rious phases and problems of population, agriculture, 
manufacturing, wealth and taxation, farm owner- 
ship and tenancy, public roads, public sanitation, 
cooperative farm enterprise, schools and churches in 
Georgia. The state has been passing under search- 
ing review as a whole, and in detail, county by 
county. Every step of the way, Georgia is compared 
with the other states of the Union and ranked ac- 
cordingly. But also her gains and losses, between 
1900 and 1910, are exhibited in a ten-year balance 
sheet. 

"Meanwhile the various student groups have been 
working out similar balance sheets for their home 
counties, each county being ranked among the other 
counties of the state in all the particulars covered in 
the club studies. These bare facts are then translated 
into simple running narratives for easy reading 
by the wayfaring man back in the home coun- 
ties. Thirty-six such surveys have thus far been 
given to the public. They embody facts and well- 
considered conclusions. The club believes that facts 
without opinions are useless, and that opinions with- 
out facts are impertinent and mischievous. 

"And so the club is ransacking the census returns, 
the reports of the State House officials, the county 
tax digest, the grand jury presentments, the minutes 
of the church associations, the section on Georgia in 



306 LEARNING TO EARN 

the school Hbrary and every other available source of 
authoritative information. 

"Most of the students are country bred and usually 
know their home counties thoroughly; but when 
they study the drift of affairs and events during a 
ten-year interval, and check the contrasts, they are 
brought face to face with causes, conditions and con- 
sequences within small, definite, well-known areas. 

*'The discoveries challenge interest and concern 
like a bugle blast. A sense of civic and social respon- 
sibility stirs in them. They hear the call of service in 
the countryside, to service within the walls of their 
schoolroom and far beyond it. All of these young 
people will be teachers, but few of them will be 
teachers 'merely ; they will be leaders as well, in all 
worthy community enterprises. The rising tide of 
patriotic fever and fervor in the Georgia club is a 
large asset for the school and for Georgia in the 
future. Clear thinking in economics and sociology in 
our schools is too often like sunshine in winter — full 
of light and freezing. But accurate, definite knowl- 
edge about one's own home and people is tonic and 
quickening to the civic senses. It is full of life and 
light. It is a concrete, direct approach to the formal 
studies of economics and sociology in our colleges 
and universities." 

For country school-teachers, who want to prepare 
for teaching agriculture, the model practise schools 
and practise work are beneficial. Many states main- 
tain practise schools in connection with their state 
normals, but this work may be done also in the 



TRAINING OF TEACHERS 307 

county training schools and in the teachers' training 
departments in the high schools which undertake to 
train teachers. 

There are available for the rural teachers already 
employed who can not afford to quit teaching and 
who want to prepare themselves for teaching in agri- 
cultural schools, special courses in summer schools, 
extension courses and correspondence courses. Ohio 
has organized special extension courses in several 
counties for training agricultural teachers. The 
schools are in charge of instructors from the exten- 
sion department of the State Agricultural College 
and the funds used to support the courses are re- 
ceived from the federal government under an act of 
1907. At least twenty-five state institutions and at 
least five private schools have arranged to give cor- 
respondence courses in agriculture. 

There must of necessity be a great deal of experi- 
mentation in the training of teachers by high 
schools, county training schools, colleges and uni- 
versities for vocational teaching. The product will 
not be uniformly useful, but the experimentation 
may be warranted as a part of the effort to work 
out the problem. 

It is probable that we shall have less trouble in 
obtaining an adequate supply of efficient teachers of 
agriculture than of teachers of industrial vocations 
and the commercial pursuits. But it seems quite 



308 ' LEARNING TO EARN 

practical that high-school students who desire to 
become industrial teachers may gain no little shop 
experience by working part time while they are pur- 
suing the regular high-school course. In fact, it is 
wise for them to work part time whether they ex- 
pect to teach or not. 



CHAPTER XVI 

HOW SHALL THE OBLIGATION BE MET 

More money needed when education becomes universal — The 
historical development of local theory of education — The 
growth of state supervision — State aid — National aid — Sys- 
tems of aid most efficient plan — National importance of voca- 
tional education — Competitive trade — Social unrest — Agricul- 
tural development — New burdens — Imminence of the problem 
— States and communities alone can not meet the needs 
quickly enough — Differences of financial abilities — Team play 
of the nation, states and local units needed — The propo^l be- 
fore Congress for national aid. 

The program of vocational education outlined in 
the previous chapters will require more money for 
the public schools. From one to two years will be 
added to the average school life of the children and 
a complete system would bring at least four million 
students into the part-time and evening schools. Ex- 
tension work, correspondence courses and voca- 
tional guidance and vocational libraries will require 
additional money. It is going inevitably to cost more 
to support public education when education becomes 
universal than it does now when more than ninety 
per cent, are only partially educated. This cost will 
not be in proportion to the number added to the 
school population, but it will nevertheless be a con- 
siderable burden. 

309 



310 LEARNING TO EARN 

Assuming that vocational education is an obliga- 
tion of this democratic people — and who can doubt 
it — how shall this obligation be met? Where will 
the money come from to train men in the hundreds 
of vocations; to prepare a new kind of social teacher 
for the task of training men; and to provide the 
equipment necessary for this large work? 

These are questions of first-rate importance. They 
are fairly up to the American people, at this very 
moment when beginnings are being made to meet 
the obligation which rests upon them. 

By an historic accident the schools have come to 
be looked upon as the concern of the state and the 
local units. Indeed many go so far as to declare that 
the schools are a local problem solely. Resistance 
has frequently been made even to state interference 
or support, which carries with it inspection in educa- 
tional matters. 

The national government can have no direct con- 
trol of the school administration because the federal 
power is a delegated power and education is not one 
of the powers delegated to it. The constitution is 
silent on the subject, — silent, not because the fram- 
ers of the constitution were not in sympathy with 
education, but because public education was at that 
time almost unknown. Most of the earliest state 
constitutions likewise ignored the subject for the 
same reason. There were no free schools and it was 
not considered an obligation to furnish free schools. 



THE OBLIGATION 311 

An advanced step was that in Pennsylvania, where 
it was declared in 1790 that the state ought to estab- 
lish schools so "that the poor might be taught 
gratis." 

It was nearly the middle of the last century when 
free schools began to develop. They came slowly 
and even in the memory of men, not yet old, free 
education was narrowly limited. In some states free 
schools were abolished after a trial. Under the cir- 
cumstances the elementary schools grew up in the 
main under local stimulus and control. 

The result of this local development was that edu- 
cation was diffused very unevenly in each state. 
Some localities provided good teachers, ample equip- 
ment, and a reasonably long school term; others 
made no move for public education whatever ; while 
in many places schools were so poorly equipped and 
conducted as to be practically useless. 

But there soon grew up a consciousness on the 
part of the state and nation of their duty toward 
public education. It was recognized that a nation or 
state part ignorant and part educated could not en- 
dure on solid democratic principles. The new state 
constitutions of the middle of the last century de- 
clared for the general establishment of free schools 
and the general diffusion of knowledge. The "local" 
theory of education was exploded by the march of 
events and the state assumed its duty to see that the 
citizens of every community should have adequate 



312 LEARNING TO EARN 

opportunities for education. State aid was given to 
encourage action on the part of local communities; 
the weaker districts were given special aid; expert 
assistance and guidance were provided ; close super- 
vision was finally established by state departments 
of public instruction and state boards of education 
and, lastly, the establishment of elementary schools 
in all communities was required and attendance of 
children therein made compulsory. 

Coordinate with this movement for state aid and 
supervision of education came the recognition by 
the federal government of the plan and purpose of 
education in our national life. Not being permitted 
by the federal constitution to take an active part in 
establishing and controlling educational systems, the 
federal government has contented itself with grant- 
ing direct aid either in money or lands to be used 
by the states as they saw fit. First and last, accord- 
ing to Monroe's Encyclopedia of Education, these 
grants for the common schools will have yielded a 
total income of five hundred and ninety-nine million 
dollars. 

The famous Morrill Act of 1862 granted tracts of 
land to the states for vocational education in agri- 
culture and mechanic arts. This was supplemented 
in 1887 by additional grants and by annual grants 
for agricultural experiment and extension work, un- 
til the total amount already contributed by the fed- 
eral government amounts to more than two hundred 



JHE OBLIGATION 313 

million dollars. By the Smith-Lever Law, passed in 
1914, the further sum of six million dollars is ap- 
propriated annually for agricultural demonstration 
work by the states. 

Thus by a succession of events, education has de- 
veloped from a matter of local concern which com- 
munities could provide or not as their patriotism or 
their greed dictated, and which children could at- 
tend or not as the enlightenment or the ignorance of 
parents permitted, into a matter of state and na- 
tional care and solicitude — the states fulfilling the 
requirement written or implied in their constitutions 
that "knowledge and learning generally diffused 
throughout a community being essential to the pres- 
ervation of a free government, it shall be the duty 
of the legislature to encourage by all suitable means, 
moral, intellectual and agricultural improvement"; 
and the nation fulfilling the duty laid upon it by its 
fundamental law "to promote the general welfare." 

In all the development of state and national 
purposes in education, the theory of local self-gov- 
ernment has been maintained in so far as it was pos- 
sible under the necessities for the diffusion of 
knowledge. The local units have built their schools, 
voted their taxes and controlled the operation of the 
schools. The state has merely said in effect to the 
localities, "You must provide education of a mini- 
mum grade. Go ahead, build and maintain your 
schools, and the state will help you bear the bur- 



314 LEARNING TO EARN 

den." Obviously under this plan, state inspection 
and supervision was necessary in order to make cer- 
tain that the partnership was being properly con- 
ducted. The national grants have been made to the 
states with little but the moral obligation on the 
states to use the money according to the wish of the 
donor. 

Cooperation in the form of a partnership be- 
tween central and local governments is the acme of 
efficiency. Throughout the English-speaking world 
it has been employed in the form of "grants in aid" 
with splendid results in many fields of social and 
economic affairs. Sidney Webb^ says of "grants in 
aid" in England that "They furnish the only practi- 
cable method consistent with local autonomy of 
bringing to bear upon local administration the wis- 
dom of experience, superiority of knowledge and 
breadth of view which, as compared with the admin- 
istrators of any small town, a central executive de- 
partment can not fail to acquire, for the carrying 
into effect the general policy which parliament has 
prescribed. Without in the least believing that there 
exists in any government office a special fund of ad- 
ministrative wisdom or that the inhabitants of the 
smallest town may not know best how to govern 
that town, there are usually some lines of policy and 
some directions of expenditure which in the com- 
mon judgment of the community are better than 



* Webb, Grants in Aid, p. 21. 



THE OBLIGATION 315 

others. Yet experience shows that some local au- 
thorities will at all times be backward in discarding 
the worse and adopting the better alternative . . . 
Grants in aid should be so arranged as to give en- 
couragement to expenditures which are deemed in 
the national interest, desirable, rather than expend- 
itures which are deemed undesirable." 

Other reasons advanced by Webb for such grants 
are that they prevent an extreme inequality of bur- 
den between one district and another ; that they give 
weight to the suggestions, criticisms and instructions 
by which the central authority seeks to secure 
greater efficiency and economy of administration; 
and they provide the means of enforcing on all lo- 
cal authorities that "national minimum" of efficiency 
in local services which we now see to be indispensa- 
ble in the national interest. 

There are many practical considerations which 
argue for local, state and national cooperation in 
vocational education aside from the efficiency of the 
method, and the preservation of local initiative and 
self-government. The need for vocational education 
is a national one, involving our future success as a 
nation, both in relation to foreign countries in trade 
and commerce and to our social and economic prob- 
lems at home. In the future struggles for commer- 
cial supremacy in the world's markets, that nation 
will win, and will deserve to win, which makes the 
best goods at the lowest price. Dependence upon 



316 LEARNING TO EARN 

supplies of raw material which has heretofore given 
this country an advantage is only a temporary ad- 
vantage which does not count in the century-long 
commercial struggles before us. In fact, only a part 
of a century will be needed to remove the advantage 
which we now possess, in our supplies of raw ma- 
terials, unless we reform our wasteful and ignorant 
methods of mining, lumbering and farming, and of 
utilizing the products of mine, forest and field. 

We can not depend upon a few industrial leaders 
of brilliance to keep us up in the race. To be sure, 
we have managerial skill of a high grade, and upon 
it we have built what we now possess. But the sup- 
ply of such men is limited and the specialization of 
industry has cut off the principal source from which 
the most efficient have come. There is a wide gap 
between the men in the management and the men 
in the ranks. A few men in the factory do the think- 
ing, while thousands automatically work on and 
often are even discouraged from thinking. The 
combination of thought and work is reduced to a 
minimum. Such a condition may be temporarily 
successful, but is disastrous in the long run, and that 
disaster extends to the commercial life of the na- 
tion. 

Industrial efficiency means efficiency all along the 
line. Efficiency means the ability to do a task in the 
very best manner and the desire to do harder and 
more important tasks. Promotion must, in some 



THE OBLIGATION 317 

manner, be held before all men and that can only be 
done by wide-spread training, reaching every man 
in the ranks. Germany recognized the necessity for 
universal training and it was recently her proud 
boast that in a few years there would not be such a 
thing as an untrained man in the empire. What 
that would have meant to the trade of nations were 
it not for untimely war, can only be conjectured. 
Certain it is that the unfaltering advance of German 
trade and commerce has been due to vocational edu- 
cation. The nation's purpose held to that course and 
planned for a further advance by promoting educa- 
tional efficiency through every grade of labor. Qur 
nation must learn the lesson and apply the method, 
if any solid, permanent, world results are to be ac- 
complished in our commerce. 

It is imperative that the nation recognize the so- 
cial significance of vocational education in industrial 
work and promote such education as a means of fur- 
thering the security of our established order. Social 
unrest pervades the land. Everywhere one finds evi- 
dence of unsound conditions in the social fabric. It 
breaks out in the form of strikes; in the demand for 
legislation regarding hours, and conditions of work; 
in the formation of labor unions; in the propaganda 
of the Socialist or the demands of the Industrial 
Workers of the World. 

These conditions can not long continue without 
serious consequences to the national welfare and the 



318 LEARNING TO EARN 

nation's clear duty is to find immediate correction. 
One of the most potent means of correction is certain 
to be found in vocational education. It goes to the 
very root of the causes of discontent. By providing 
a means for each man to find a way "out and up," it 
puts the divine spark of ambition into men. It puts 
promotion in the way of every man who will profit 
by it, and thus removes the one chief evil against 
which men justly complain. It opens up the safety 
valves through which the righteous discontent of 
the workers may escape to the profit of the man and 
the benefit of the nation. 

The national importance of agricultural education 
scarcely needs to be referred to here. Agriculture is 
the principal basic industry of the country and upon 
it depends the prosperity of the nation. Markets 
rise and fall upon the reports of crop yield. So 
closely is our industrial fabric knit with agriculture 
that captains of industry and great financiers wait 
with anxiety before acting to get the first official 
crop predictions. 

It is the nation's purpose to foster agriculture ; to 
preserve the soil and to build up a countryside which 
shall be a solid bulwark against social decay. The 
economic profit is great and the social value is in- 
calculable. In this the states and local units join 
heartily and effectively. All profit by the coopera- 
tion and all should pay the cost. 

The task of education in these new fields is one 



THE OBLIGATION 319 

of analysis and cautious advance. We need to know 
what we are attempting to do and make plans on the 
basis of ascertained facts. We should know what 
knowledge is worth while and the ''relative value of 
knowledges" and we must find men and women ca- 
pable of imparting to learners what has been deter- 
mined to be of most worth. Efficient cooperation 
of all agencies benefited is needed to stimulate the 
production of a new kind of social teacher who can 
study intelligently the needs of industry, agriculture, 
business and home and their relation to the broader 
needs of civic life and who upon the data gathered 
from such study may build school courses suited to 
the needs of all workers and who can grasp the prob- 
lems presented by the new order so that the move- 
ment for vocational education may press steadily 
forward without being diverted from its real pur- 
pose. 

What has been said of the nation's duty applies in 
a larger way to the individual states. The competi- 
tion which the nation enters into with the world is, 
in miniature, engaged in by the states with each 
other. Each state has its own developments to sus- 
tain; its special industries to promote; its own re- 
sources to conserve and its own social problems to 
solve. Some of these can be left to the local units, 
some to the nation. The state must work them out 
through the local units with such aid as the federal 
government may grant. Thus the promotion of 



320 LEARNING TO EARN 

textile manufacture in Massachusetts in competition 
with that of the South is a problem which Massa- 
chusetts is most concerned in solving but upon the 
right solution of which the nation has an interest. 
If that problem is solved by Massachusetts through 
education whereby a finer and ever finer grade of 
textile shall be the product; if the people of Massa- 
chusetts meet the competition of Georgia by learn- 
ing to make better goods and leaving the coarser 
goods for Georgia's development, the result is a na- 
tional benefit and a state asset and of great local im- 
portance to all cities where textiles are made. The 
counter-action of any competition, whether between 
states or nations, is to be found in the development 
of new or superior products. In the friendly rivalry 
of states each state can profit greatly by the develop- 
ment of its products through educated skill. 

The cities and towns have a greater interest than 
the state or nation in education which fits their in- 
dustries. Their concern is immediate and pervad- 
ing. The results are tangible. They can be seen 
in the direct prosperity of the community and its 
citizens. In the nation and the state the results are 
merely observable in the aggregate ; to the cities and 
towns it means concrete betterment; to the citizen 
it means efficiency, prosperity, contentment, hope | 
for himself and his children. 

The conclusion which follows from these state- 
ments is obvious. Whoshallbear the burden? The 



THE OBLIGATION 321 

nation, state and local communities, being the joint 
beneficiaries, should share the cost with the co- 
operation if not the financial aid of the industries 
more directly benefited. The obligation rests pe- 
culiarly upon the state and nation to point the way 
and lend inducements. Study of the problem is 
needed and expert assistance must be provided. 
These, the states, but more especially the nation, are 
fitted to give. The obligation rests upon the local 
communities thereafter to initiate the program, to 
study local needs, to provide the schools and to co- 
operate with the state and nation in their support. 

But there are other considerations more loi!dly 
calling for unity of action and more clearly em- 
phasizing the distribution of the burden, chief 
among which is the mobility of our workers. A 
man may be born in New York, educated for a trade 
in Cincinnati, and spend his days in Chicago. His 
vocation may call him into many states in a single 
year, and perhaps in the course of a lifetime he 
may have done useful work in every part of the 
country. 

According to the census of 1910, only fifty-seven 
and three-tenths per cent, of the urban population 
were born in the state where they were then living. 
Even the rural population showed that only seventy- 
four and five-tenths per cent, were natives of the 
state in which they were then living. An investiga- 
tion by the Russell Sage Foundation in 1913 dis- 



322 LEARNING TO EARN 

closed that in seventy-eight American cities only 
sixteen per cent, of the fathers of the 22,027 boys 
thirteen years of age were born in the city where 
they were then living. Of the boys themselves, only 
fifty-eight per cent, were natives of the city where 
they were attending school. 

The mobility of industrial labor, moreover, seems 
to be marked in those industries which are common 
to many communities as well as to those which are 
localized in a few industrial centers. 

The mobility of population brings also another 
inequitable distribution of burden through the mass- 
ing of unskilled native and immigrant labor in a 
few industrial centers. No one would argue, for 
instance, that it is just for the cities of New York, 
Chicago and Boston to bear the entire burden of 
educating the foreign immigrants whom the laws 
of the country permit to enter but fail properly to 
distribute. The inequitable distribution of burden 
from all of these causes is the most powerful argu- 
ment adduced in favor of the distribution of burden 
among the localities, states and nation — the joint 
beneficiaries. 

A second consideration of great importance lies 
in the unequal abilities of the states and the local 
units to provide the kind of education which the 
national purpose demands. The Commission on 
Federal Vocational Education estimated the wealth 
per capita of school population with significant 



THE OBLIGATION 323 

effect. Their estimates show that the average 
wealth for the whole country per capita is about 
five thousand six hundred and seventy-four dollars. 
In ten states the average exceeds ten thousand dol- 
lars. In five other states the average is less than 
one thousand nine hundred dollars. It is apparent 
that the resources of some are relatively totally in- 
adequate. The commission makes the following 
statement : 

"Assuming that the people of the several states 
are equally disposed to contribute to the support of 
their schools in proportion to their means, there will 
be expended per capita of school population in iSIe- 
vada nearly ten times the amount available in 
Georgia or Alabama; in California approximately 
five times as much as is available in Arkansas, Flor- 
ida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Tennessee, 
Texas or Virginia; and approximately twice as 
much as is available in Delaware, Indiana, Maine, 
Maryland, Missouri, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, 
Washington or Wisconsin." 

The ability of the states may roughly be estimated 
upon the present state of indebtedness which varies 
from three cents per capita in Iowa to $10.46 in 
Virginia, $13.02 in Arizona and $22.78 in Massa- 
chusetts. Thirteen states average less than $1 per 
capita, while twelve states exceed $6 per capita. 

A similar story can be told of the relative ability 
of the cities, towns and rural districts to meet singly 



324 LEARNING TO EARN 

and alone the burdens which increased educational 
facilities put upon them. 

To meet the nation-wide needs for vocational 
education; to distribute the burdens equitably 
among the beneficiaries; and to promote efficiency 
in the expenditure of money for vocational educa- 
tion through team-play of nation, state and local 
units, there is pending before the Congress of the 
United States a bill providing for national aid for 
vocational education in agriculture, trades and indus- 
tries and for the training of teachers of vocational 
subjects. 

By the terms of the bill, when it is in full force, 
the sum of seven million dollars will be appropri- 
ated annually, three millions of which will go to 
agriculture, three millions to trade and industries, 
and one million to the training of teachers of voca- 
tional subjects. An additional appropriation of two 
hundred thousand dollars annually is made to study 
processes of industry, commerce, agriculture and 
the home, in order to guide the teaching process. 
The bill provides that the appropriation shall be 
spent under the direction of state boards provided 
for by the state legislatures upon plans submitted 
by such boards and approved by the national board 
for vocational education consisting of five members 
of the cabinet, namely, the secretary of agriculture, 
secretary of the interior, secretary of labor, secre- 
tary of commerce, and the postmaster-general. 



THE OBLIGATION 325 

The commissioner of education is to be the execu- 
tive officer of this board, and under his direction the 
work will be carried out. 

Under this bill, if enacted, the states will initiate 
their plans for vocational education suited to their 
particular circumstances. These plans, when ap- 
proved by the national board, will constitute a work- 
ing agreement between the states and the federal 
government in the nature of a contract binding as 
long as the conditions are observed on both sides. 
The whole initiative is left with the states and local 
communities, the federal government giving aid 
only for approved kinds of vocational education. 
We have thus the preservation of local initiative; 
the distribution of burden; and the means to pro- 
mote the efficiency of the kind of education desired. 
The nation pays part of the cost, and this forms the 
dynamic force stirring states and local units to ac- 
tion. The nation studies the problem, gives the 
benefits of its studies freely and encourages local 
action without the element of compulsory control 
by the nation, which, in our theory of government, 
would be objectionable. 

The European war has directly emphasized the 
need for action. We have been thrown back upon 
our own resources and at the same time we have 
been called upon to lead the industrial and commer- 
cial world. We need to train our workers to meet 
the new demands. We need research bureaus to 



326 LEARNING TO EARN 

guide industry and commerce and effective exten- 
sion work to disseminate essential knowledge wher- 
ever it is needed. We can not well delay without 
the surrender of world-wide opportunities. 

National aid is the means of mobilizing for action 
the forces working for vocational education. It is 
a means of attacking a problem too vast for the 
states, working independently. All that has been 
done in vocational education is as nothing compared 
with that which is yet to be begun. The need for 
vocational education increases faster than the facili- 
ties for providing it. Team play on the part of the 
nation, states and local units such as that provided 
in the bill, is urgently necessary if we are to ad- 
vance the national welfare. 



CHAPTER XVII 

WORK AND CULTURE 

What is culture ? — The medieval conception of culture — Intro- 
duction of manual training and of the occupational interest 
into the curriculum — The social difference in vocations and 
the explanation — Culture closely related to thorough and 
carefully-planned methods of doing work — Art and artisans 
— Homely evidences of culture — Economic phases of culture 
— Erroneous notions of culture — Culture for our working 
hours — Universal education wholly unrealized — Education 
must dovetail into the life-work of boys and girls. ^ 

Approximately one hundred million people 
come within the range of the American system of 
education. Millions more will come under this in- 
fluence. A few realize their maximum potentialities 
as citizens of the republic, as workers in the fields, 
the home, the marts of trade. An almost unbeliev- 
able majority of our people never rise above the 
plane of superficial thinking and indifferent effort. 
Too many of us die propertyless because we put off 
saving pennies until we are able to save dollars. Too 
many of us fail to attain a higher state of culture 
because we are unwilling to make modest begin- 
nings. 

Vocational education recognizes this current 
human weakness and undertakes to forestall its un- 

327 



328 LEARNING TO EARN 

happy consequences by careful scientific education 
for each boy and girl in accordance with individual 
capacity, personal talents, determinate ability. 
Education for a calling need by no means be one- 
sided or devoid of general value and is, as Doctor 
Kerschensteiner says,^ for most men, and espe- 
cially for workers in industries, trades and traffic, 
well nigh the only way to reach a higher stage of 
culture. What we want in this country is not 
greater culture so much as wider culture. It is the 
dissemination of culture which must be brought 
about. We must universalize it, not forgetting that 
the man who does an humble task is quite as sus- 
ceptible to culture as the man who performs a public 
service, even though in a lesser degree. 

Culture, in its broadest aspects, means the su- 
preme realization by all the people, taken individu- 
ally, of their potential strength and power. It means 
wider intelligence and greater personal skill. It is 
a program for no less than one hundred per cent, of 
our people. "Fortunately," says David Snedden,^ 
"we no longer hold the older notion that culture is 
inseparable from certain specialized forms of appre- 
ciation, such as ability to read Greek, speak French, 
recite sonnets, or discuss the latest fiction, and we 
are slowly learning to conceive it as something 



^Fundamental Principles of Continuation Schools, an ad- 
dress delivered under the auspices of the National Society for 
the Prorhotion of Industrial Education. 

'^Problems of Educational Readjustment, p. 73, 



WORK AND CULTURE 329 

deeper than the mere possession of etiquette and a 
set of conventions." 

The industrial revolution has done its part to 
break up the medieval hierarchy of learning. The 
invention of the printing press, the improved meth- 
ods of communication and means of travel, the 
growing scope of the division of labor from the 
confines of the community on the outpost of civiliza- 
tion to the world-wide barter and sale have facili- 
tated somewhat the advent of an intellectual democ- 
racy. Yet the medieval conception of intelligence 
still persists. Schools deal with mere symbols of 
knowledge, and learning is abstract, intangible* un- 
real and largely devoid of utilitarian significance. 
While appearing to ignore any consideration of 
their social responsibility, the schools have likewise 
failed to sustain the interest of the individual 
learner. The commonest reason given for the in- 
troduction of manual training and domestic science 
into the curriculum was, as John Dewey says,^ to en- 
gage "the full spontaneous interest and attention of 
the children" ; to keep them "alert and active instead 
of passive and receptive" ; to make them "more use- 
ful, more capable and hence more inclined to be 
helpful at home" ; to prepare them "to some extent 
for the practical duties of later life." 

It might be explained how invention and enter- 
prise have changed the face of the industrial map 

^ School and Society, p. 26. 



330 LEARNING TO EARN 

and how the processes of industry, once the proxi- 
mate interests of the child's Hfe, are now remote, 
inaccessible and obscure. The period of primary 
production in the home is gone never to return. 
Manual training and domestic science may be re- 
garded either as successful experiments that changed 
somewhat the form of a system without affecting 
its content, or as preliminary steps to the complete 
transformation of the educational system by intro- 
ducing into it the occupational interest. By and 
through the transformation, as Dewey says,* the 
entire spirit of the school is to be renewed. Thus 
the school "has a chance to affiliate itself with life, 
to become the child's habitat, where he learns 
through directed living, instead of being only a 
place to learn lessons having an abstract and remote 
reference to some possible living to be done in the 
future. It gets a chance to be a miniature com- 
munity, an embryonic society. This is the funda- 
mental fact, and from this arise continuous and 
orderly courses of instruction." 

While Dewey's arraignment of the present sys- 
tem seems harsh enough when he comments upon 
the isolation of the school from real life, as, for 
instance, "when the child gets into the schoolroom 
he has to put out of his mind a large part of the 
ideas, interests and activities that predominate in 
hishome and neighborhood" ; or when he pleads for 
* The School and Society, p. 3t. 



WORK AND CULTURE 331 

a school that will be "active with types of occupa- 
tions that reflect the life of the larger society"; 
nevertheless he appears to avoid the natural se- 
quence of his own reasoning and to miss altogether 
the point to vocational education when he remarks 
in another place/ "it is not meant that the school 
is to prepare the child for any particular business, 
but that there should be a natural connection of the 
every-day life of the child with the business environ- 
ment about him." On the contrary, this is just' 
what vocational education means, if it means any- 
thing. Moreover, it is precisely what an "organic 
connection between the school and business ^ife" 
means, if it means anything. 

The trouble with what Dewey says, incidentally, 
is that it was written before the full significance of 
manual training and domestic science was under- 
stood in this country, but fundamentally that even 
he is not able wholly to depart from the theory that 
education, learning or knowledge is the final aim and 
ambition of man, while food, shelter and clothing 
are mere incidents to human existence. Manual 
training and domestic science were to be cast upon 
the water like the Scriptural bread with the hope that 
somehow, since there is comparatively little com- 
pensation and small response from present intellec- 
tual exercises in the school, manual training and 
domestic science would return forthwith baited with 



The School and Society, p. 90. 



332 LEARNING TO EARN 

eager learners. Or, perhaps, manual training was 
never meant to be more than a prop, and was ex- 
pected to fulfill its mission as such ; albeit, there has 
always been a more obvious reason for driving a 
nail straight than that of intellectual diversion or 
merely keeping a large percentage of the boys in 
school. 

We can agree with Dewey, however, that "occu- 
pations in the school shall not be mere practical de- 
vices or modes of routine employment, the gaining 
of better technical skill as cooks, seamstresses, or 
carpenters, but active centers of scientific insight 
into natural materials and processes, points of de- 
parture whence children shall be led out into a reali- 
zation of the historic development of man." If 
vocational education can attain this aim in purpose 
and method, and it can not afford to stop short of 
it, then we shall have combined the two most im- 
portant ideals in education, the cultural and the 
utilitarian. It is not merely that carpentry and 
medicine are so vastly different in content that we 
call one manual labor and the other a learned pro- 
fession. It is not merely that the carpenter works 
with his hands and the physician may find such un- 
necessary. It is because education has devised a 
more or less scientific approach to medicine and has 
failed to do so in the case of carpentry. 

"The man that builds my house, shall he be 
merely a sawer off of boards and a nailer on of 



WORK AND CULTURE 333 

shingles or shall he have and feel an intelligent 
sympathy with its architectural plan?" asks Doctor 
Davenport.^ "If he have that sympathy he will feel 
it as he works, and he will unconsciously put it into 
his works, and we shall have the plan fully executed 
and the house will become a habitation full of hu- 
man thought in its execution as well as in its design. 
If he does not feel that sympathy with the ideal of 
the architect, he can not put the best into its execu- 
tion and the result will give the impression of an 
ideal badly realized and badly executed. The com- 
mon man may not be able to originate and create, 
but if he is properly educated he will feel the artistic 
thrill in execution and both he and his work will be 
the better for it. This, too, is culture.'* • 

Assuredly, it is culture, and culture which is 
available to every man, high or low, rich or poor. It 
is the culture of effort, the culture of efficient service. 
It is quite as accessible to the blacksmith as to the 
lawyer; to the farmer as to the teacher of Greek; 
to the toiling housewife as to the painter of beauti- 
ful pictures. In any case, the standard is not the 
possession merely of knowledge, inspiration and in- 
sight, but the use of knowledge, action based on 
inspiration and creation drawn from insight. "I 
can not see much culture in mere ravings upon the 
achievements of others or even in meditation upon 
lofty thoughts and purposes unless," says Daven- 



® E. Davenport, Dean of the College of Agriculture and 
Director of the Agricultural Experiment Station, University 
of Illinois : Education for Efficiency, p. 95. 



334 LEARNING TO EARN 

port/ "that meditation leads to action/' So with 
the carpenter, the blacksmith, the farmer, the house- 
wife, the test is the same that we must apply to the 
practise of medicine or law, the teaching of Greek 
and the finish of an oil painting. Judged by this 
standard, we must not be surprised if teaching Greek 
IS dwarfed by comparison v^^ith ironing dainty linen 
or nailing on a horseshoe with consummate skill. As 
Dewey points out so aptly,^ "genuine art grows out 
of the work of the artisan" and "the art of Renais- 
sance was great because it grew out of the manual 
arts of life. It did not spring up in a separate atmos- 
phere, however ideal, but carried on to their spiritual 
meaning processes found in homely and every-day 
forms of life. The school should observe this 
relationship. The merely artisan side is narrow, 
but the mere art, taken by itself, and grafted on 
from without tends to become forced, empty, senti- 
mental." 

Consider the beautiful rugs for which we are 
willing to pay such fabulous prices ! Are they not 
works of art? Or the exquisite tapestries which 
women with a sense of the beautiful are so eager to 
possess? Are they not also the products of minds 
fired with imagination as well as hands skilled with 
the suppleness of execution ? Or a bit of dainty em- 
broidery or lace? We are with one accord ready to 

^ Education for Efficiency, p. 94. 
School and Society, p. 103. 



WORK AND CULTURE 335 

recognize back of these things a kind of culture for 
which we gladly pay a premium. Yet no rug of 
Oriental design and workmanship, no tapestry of a 
departed century, no embroidery or lace of fanciful 
workmanship has been evolved as a mere object 
of beautiful and artistic creation. The fundamental 
idea back of their creation was service. Is any one 
who loves horses, especially harness horses, and who 
understands the importance of a properly balanced 
shoe ready to say that the nailing on of that shoe 
consists merely in driving nails through holes in a 
curved iron bar made by machinery? The stable 
boy would answer this question with a signiflbant 
grin, yet he probably would fail if asked to analyze 
the cultured possibilities in a blacksmith's training. 
Many things have combined to disclose to the sa- 
vant the cultural opportunities in training for the 
farm. The clodhopper is a disappearing inhabitant 
of the country and in his place we have, here and 
there, the young man who, having dreamed dreams 
and seen visions, is realizing them on the farm. He 
takes charge of the old homestead, perhaps, and in 
a few years witness the transformation! If he is 
truly awake to his opportunities and at the same 
time aware of his limitations, he will be able with 
a comparatively small expenditure of capital, to 
transform the appearance of the home and its sur- 
roundings. Grass and trees cost little effort and 
practically no money. Graveled driveways and paint 



336 LEARNING TO EARN 

are economies at whatever cost, but they can be 
added with Httle outlay except effort expended at 
odd times. Fences, naturally, must be kept in re- 
pair, else a cow may wander off in the corn, foun- 
der, and lose the cost of a well-built fence. Fence 
rows will be kept clean of weeds since it is cheaper 
to cut weeds in fence rows than contend with them 
in hills of growing corn and in clover. Obvious as 
the truth of these statements is, how many farmers 
in a given township plant trees with any regular- 
ity, keep their driveways graveled, their buildings 
painted, fences repaired and fence rows clear of 
weeds? The doing of these things is by no means 
a proof of culture, but it is very likely to be an evi- 
dence of it. Certainly the external evidences of 
good farming are clearly indicative that the proc- 
esses are thorough, that they have been thought- 
fully considered and carefully planned. 

This also is culture — the capacity for full and 
faithful performance, for efficient and masterful 
service. Back of it all is not merely training for 
routine precision and mechanically perfect execu- 
tion, but the breath of life itself, the thought, indi- 
viduality, originality of the doer. Incidentally, this 
personal touch, this originality is the secret, if it may 
longer be considered a secret, of the Germanic pre- 
ponderance in world markets. German tradesmen, 
and this means Germans who have anything what- 
ever to do with commerce, have not been routineers. 



WORK AND CULTURE 337 

On the contrary, they have been highly adaptable, 
pliant, eager to please and certain of their ability 
to please. Education has made them both capable 
and confident. Not the education which acquaints 
people with obsolete processes and dead languages, 
but vocational education which, knowing the his- 
torical background of commerce and industry, looks 
to the future and for the present, measured by 
standards extant, makes men and women efficient. 

The economic significance of the culture which 
implies thorough mastery of individual work is lit- 
tle realized in this country. Yet culture is not want- 
ing in economic aspects ; at least the primary sAges 
of culture. When it is remembered that the back- 
ground of the Renaissance was perfection in 
manual arts, the crating of a case of fruit, without 
losing its immediate commercial purpose, takes on a 
new and higher meaning, a finer appreciation for 
small things. The farmers of this country have 
failed time and again to gain any foothold in city 
markets merely because they do not understand the 
importance of proper grading and packing, or be- 
cause they have not learned the art of making the 
products of orchard and garden look attractive to the 
customer in the city or the middleman who must sell 
to the city buyer. Complaints against discriminations 
by the middleman avail quite as little as the efforts of 
the American manufacturer to unload a surplus de- 
signed for domestic consumption on a market, not 



338 LEARNING TO EARN 

only foreign geographically, but foreign to our proc- } 
esses and our methods. Any culture that is very 
much worth while, any culture which is more than 
a superficial and wasting polish must be founded j 
on economic considerations and depend for its ulti- 
mate realization on a superiority of technical skill. 
Otherwise any man learned in the law might con- 
vert his legal imagination, by merely willing it, to 
the terms of angles, domes and spires and design a 
beautiful cathedral. Our sense of the practical, how- 
ever, has established the rule that architects not only 
design but they supervise construction and see to 
it that the plans and specifications they have drawn 
up are carried out. Spring poetry is an annual 
scourge somewhat because our spring poets do not 
understand the technique of metrical construction. 
Of course not everybody who knows the technique 
of poetry can write great epics, but it is difficult to 
believe any one could produce an epic without know- 
ing anything about the form of epics. 

We have in this country an altogether erroneous 
notion of what culture means, of what it consists. 
We have been accustomed to think of it as some- 
thing apart from effort. Perhaps the commonest 
conception is that of a wide learning in. and broad 
knowledge of things which have no possible connec- 
tion with one's vocation. We therefore have sought 
to divorce culture from the vocational, the material, 
the economic. Culture means more than being 



WORK AND CULTURE 339 

able to gaze with delight and appreciation upon 
the tints and colors over which some old master 
toiled with the genius of inspiration. This ca- 
pacity is eminently worthy, but it not only is far out 
of reach of the multitude, it is at best merely an 
incident of culture. The masses of the people have 
little or no opportunity to visit the great art gal- 
leries of this country, much less those of Europe. 
Moreover, very few of us can be expected to gather 
more than a veneer of culture in gazing at mere pic- 
tures, for it is certain we can not afford rare works 
of art in our own homes. Our artistic education, 
for instance, may as well begin with the seleAion 
of pretty and inexpensive prints which we really can 
afford to own. Culture means more than philo- 
sophical whims and impractical visionary obsessions ; 
more than the caprices of eccentric temperaments. 
These are quite as likely to be delusions of 
the egotist, vagaries of the drone or the contemp- 
tuous cynicism of the snob as signs of culture. We 
have no very great need for this species of culture, 
but we do have a most pressing need for culture that 
is grounded on the economic independence of the 
individual. 

While this volume undertakes to maintain that 
no work is wanting in cultural aspects and that the 
spiritual insight of a first-class carpenter or builder 
is culture quite as much as the information or wis- 
dom of the poet, it would avoid any apparent pur- 



340 LEARNING TO EARN 

pose to minimize the so-called cultural subjects in 
industrial, agricultural, commercial, or home edu- 
cation. The present-day training given in the cor- 
respondence school or the private business college is 
not only inadequate, but faulty. The young man 
who has no greater equipment for a business career 
than what he has got in the average business col- 
lege is in a sad plight. He is headed straight for 
a blind alley from which he is very likely never to 
emerge. Now that we have gone to the extreme 
with learning for the sake of "mental discipline" 
or learning which "might come in handy some time," 
we do not want to plunge into the other extreme and 
reduce education wholly and strictly to the mechan- 
ical plane. 

Doctor Davenport® is right when he says, "I would 
teach to all classes of people all forms of human 
knowledge both those that lead to immediate re- 
sults and those that appeal strongly to the intellect, 
regardless of professional ends," except that the 
broad training which should accompany a voca- 
tional course is quite as likely to appeal to the 
intellect as the same training minus a vocational re- 
lationship and to possess the additional value of lead- 
ing directly to results. Davenport seems not to have 
grasped, however, the complete significance of voca- 
tional education as a new avenue to culture, for he 
would set industrial training over against culture as 

^ Education for Efficiency, p. 91. 



WORK AND CULTURE 341 

though they are somehow opposed to each other. 
The culture which he proposes to open to the vision 
of the industrial people is a culture for their leisure 
hours. ^^ There is a flavor of condescension, a smack 
of conceit and an admission that seems like unsolic- 
ited or mock charity when, after proposing culture 
for the leisure hours of the working people, he ex- 
plains that "there is nothing about labor or even 
about common things that makes impossible the 
loftiest intellectual achievements." What we want 
for the working people is not a culture for their 
leisure hours, but a culture for their working hours, 
a culture that dominates every thought, worcf and 
deed as well after the morning whistle blows as 
after the blast at six p. m. 

Notwithstanding our boastings as regards our 
system of free and universal education, we ought to 
know enough to know that it is neither free nor 
universal. Is education free when lads of ten and 
twelve quit school because of economic necessity? 
Is education free when ambitious young men who 
want to follow a profession which requires further 
study are compelled to leave off their education at 
the high school? Certainly institutions of higher 
learning have their doors open, but they are just 
beyond an unbridged precipice. Is education uni- 
versal when it merely sows seeds of discontent in 
the hearts of young men who must struggle for their 

^Ihid., p. 91, 



342 LEARNING TO EARN 

daily bread ; when it creates an appetite without fur- 
nishing any means to gratify it ? Not that we would 
mollify much this same discontent. We are not so 
overjoyed with our industrial system that we want 
to bend further the backs of unborn children in ab- 
ject submission to it. We want no recruiting sta- 
tions for strikebreakers established on property 
owned by the state and set apart for educational 
purposes. We want, as one of the beginnings of 
vocational education, certain industries put without 
the pale of public recognition and we want the rea- 
sons frankly stated. We want to see young men 
trained away from certain industries as well as for 
certain industries. No very valid argument can be 
made against vocational education merely because 
our industrial system is out of joint. If it is out 
of joint it has come to be so under an educational 
system which, as far as industry, commerce, agri- 
culture and the home are concerned, is wholly 
non-vocational. There appears to be, as a mere ar- 
gumentative proposition at least, a possible merit in 
the other extreme, which is, of course, vocational. 
An educational system under which industrial con- 
ditions have become intolerable for the worker and 
which must answer why fifty per cent, of boys and 
girls between fifteen and seventeen years of age, and 
twelve per cent, between ten and fourteen are not in 
school, would seem less vulnerable not to have raised 
the question of industrial cleavage. 



WORK AND CULTURE 343 

Because vocational education recognizes the eco- 
nomic limitations of the individual ; because it recog- 
nizes, not that some boys must work with their 
hands alone, which may or may not be the case, but 
that a large majority of our boys and girls must 
work in some way; in some way perform some use- 
ful and remunerative labor is it proposed to uni- 
versalize education by making it dovetail into this 
life-work. Its purpose can hardly fail when its 
course is founded on both native instinct and eco- 
nomic order. 

"If in this way," as Dewey says,^^ "the school is 
related as a whole to life as a whole, its various aims 
and ideals — culture, discipline, information, utility 
— cease to be variants for one of which we must 
select one study and for another, another. The 
growth of the child in the direction of social capac- 
ity and service, his larger and more vital union with 
life becomes the unifying aim; and discipline, cul- 
ture and information fall into place as phases of this 
growth." 

" The School and Society, p. 107. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

TRAINING FOR CITIZENSHIP 

Measure of vocational education — Its universal scope — An in- 
dictment of the present system — Fails to develop latent po- 
tentialities for industrial, agricultural, commercial and domes- 
tic work — Relationship between efficient workmanship and 
citizenship — Effect of habit on education — Economic aggres- 
sions due to political power — Wherein classical education fails 
— Aimless drifting into overcrowded professions and the re- 
sult — Our wasteful and bad government — People fail in the 
simplest duties — Individual efficiency means social efficiency — 
When education is pointless, the level of citizenship falls — , 
The failure of public servants because of ignorance — Specific 
training for citizenship — Teaching the morals of good citizen- 
ship. 

There can be no higher mission which vocational 
education can perform, no more lofty ideal it can 
attain, than the training for useful and efficient citi- 
zenship. Ultimately, it must be judged by ;this 
standard and measured by this test. Its program 
rests not only on scientific, individual education and 
training for the managing and directing vocations, 
but also on like education and training for the doing 
of common things. It discounts empirical and lack- 
adaisical methods of mental and physical activity 
and depends for its service in behalf of useful and 
efficient citizenship upon its ability to maintain cor- 
rect habits of the mind and hand. Moreover, it 

344 ~ ^ 



TRAINING FOR CITIZENSHIP 345 

seeks to establish proper habits among approxi- 
mately ninety-seven per cent, of the people who are 
now neglected in our scheme of education. That a 
man is employed or busy is no proof of his efficiency 
as a workman and that he merely lives in an organ- 
ized society is no proof that he is a useful and effi- 
cient citizen in that society. 

"Every one who lives in a state and enjoys its 
protection must contribute through his work, di- 
rectly or indirectly, to further the object of the 
state as a community for the purposes of justice and 
civilization," says Doctor George Kerschensteiner.^ 
''Not till then is he a useful member of the state. 
And there can be no doubt that it is the duty of all 
schools supported by public means to educate useful 
members of the state." 

An indictment against education as now admin- 
istered might be drawn up in four counts : It fails 
to develop latent potentialities for industrial work; 
it fails to develop with satisfactory progress the 
nation-wide movement for better farming; it has 
neglected its full duty with reference to the needs 
of the business world for scientific insight ; its pro- 
gram for home life is not comprehensive and has 



* Dr. George Kerschensteiner, Director of Education and 
corresponding member of the Royal Academy of Applied 
Sciences in Erfurt: The Fundamental Principles of Continu- 
ation Schools, one of three addresses delivered in America 
under the auspices of the National Society for the Promotion 
of Industrial Education. 



346 LEARNING TO EARN 

failed to develop a very wide spirit for the orderly 
management of the home. These counts may be 
consolidated into the single charge that education 
has omitted its complete duty to the industrial 
worker, the farmer, the commercial worker, the 
home-maker, and therefore has failed, to this ex- 
tent, to educate the great bulk of our people to be 
"useful members of the state." 

Aside from the specific approach to a superior re- 
lationship between the citizen and his government, 
which vocational education warrants, in definite 
training to that end, who can doubt, for instance, 
that the industrial worker will have become a better 
citizen when he has become a better workman ? To 
some extent vocational education for industry, for 
agriculture, for business and for the home will auto- 
matically develop a higher order of citizenship. As, 
a special committee of the American Federation. of 
Labor put it in 1909 : "Owing to past methods and 
influences, false views and absurd notions possess 
the niinds of too many of our youths, which cause 
them to shun work at the trades and to seek the 
office or store as much more genteel and fitting. 
This sijly notion has been shaken by the healthy in- 
fluence of unions, and will be entirely eradicated if 
industrial training becomes a part of our school sys- 
tem, and in consequence of this system of training 
they will advance greatly in general intelligejice, as 
well as in technical skill and in mental and moral 



TRAINING FOR CITIZENSHIP 347 

worth. They will become better citizens, and better 
men, and will be more valuable to society and the 
country." Vocational education and vocational guid- 
ance will complete the eradication of "silly notions" 
about work in whatever quarter and, in directing 
young men and women out of "blind alleys" and out 
of uneconomic employment, make it possible for 
them to perform well the part of useful citizens. 

Our educational system by no means has been 
inflexible, but it does not change fast enough to 
•conform to the changing ideals of successive ages. 
It ought to concern itself more at this time, for in- 
stance, with noisy thoroughfares, excessive w^ter 
and light rates and all the problems of rural life. 

Several explanations are given for the failure of 
education to keep step with the times. Herbert 
Spencer said a half century ago:^ "If we inquire 
what is the real motive for giving boys a classical ed- 
ucation, we find it to be simple conformity to public 
opinion. Men dress their children's minds as they 
do their bodies in the prevailing fashion." And 
then he goes on to say a little later :^ "Not what 
knowledge is of most real worth, is the considera- 
tion; but what will bring most applause, honor, re- 
spect — what will most conduce to social position and 
influence — what will be most imposing." Spencer 



^ What Knowledge Is of Most Worth in Education (D. Ap- 
pleton, 1866), p. 23. 
^ Ibid., p. 26. 



348 LEARNING TO EARN 

very well states the position of the fond parent who 
wants her son to have an education that he may 
avoid everything except the glamour of work, the 
romance of service. 

But the consequences are sad enough. We have 
undertaken to point out the more apparent results 
of this system. Likewise we shall endeavor to show 
how vocational education will change things; how 
the reorganization of education will usher in a new 
code of styles for the dress of the human mind) 
Furthermore, we shall state briefly the rough out- 
lines of a specific course of training for public serv- 
ice, for citizenship, and present, finally, some defi- 
nite suggestions concerning education for citizenship 
as related to agriculture, to business, to industry, to 
the home. 

Since the advent of specialized labor, especially 
since the advent of machine production on a large 
scale, there has grown up a system of economic ag- 
gressions having their inception and strength in 
political power, which have plunged large sections 
of the country Into Industrial anarchy. Strikes and 
lockouts are become more frequent and more vio- 
lent. Oppression which miners can not prevent 
peaceably they oppose by force. In the wake of 
Industrial feudalism are disclosed a whole train of 
evils — child labor, bad housing, lax morals, intem- 
perance, preventable disease and crime, besides po- 
litical tyranny. Having won the privilege of ex- 



TRAINING FOR CITIZENSHIP 349 

ploiting labor at some distant capital — Washington, 
Harrisburg or Denver — the despoilers press their 
program in the local realm where their word, if it 
can not give life, nevertheless can take it away. 
'The great mass of the people," says Franz Oppen- 
heimer,* "live in bitter poverty; even under the best 
conditions they have the meager necessities of life 
earned by hard, crushing, stupefying, forced labor." 

It is no accident that the few are able to prey 
upon the mass of the people. Productive specializa- 
tion has given the man of general intelligence a su- 
perior opportunity through the perversion for pri- 
vate and personal purposes of the processes of ^v- 
ernment. Commerce and industry attract the man 
of general training because it is here he can find free 
rein, both for his imagination and his power. 

The few educated men who have prospered are 
most interested in maintaining the status quo in 
education. Our bookish curriculum prepares those 
already possessed with sufficient wealth for a foot- 
hold to exploit the producer, and to some extent the 
consumer, through control of the processes of pro- 
duction, distribution or credit. Wealth or property 
is the complement of classical training, and the 
young man surfeited with the latter and minus the 
former is at a serious disadvantage when pitted 
against the young man with both, as witness the 



* The State, by Franz Oppenheimer, Private Decent of 
Political Science, University of Berlin, p. 266. 



350 LEARNING TO EARN 

abject failures of hundreds of young men who leave 
our colleges and universities, their heads crammed 
with Latin and Greek, their pockets empty. If un- 
fitted temperamentally for teaching, they are apt to 
be quite as badly equipped for earning a living as 
when they entered college. General training plus 
wealth is a strong armor in any fight for special 
privilege under the law. The significance of legis- 
lation which secures to two or three men the right 
to buy and hold a water-power site to the prejudice 
of the public is indisputable, yet the penniless young 
man out of college can not take advantage of such 
legislation however certain he may be of its poten- 
tial value. It was the man of general intelligence 
who, a few years ago, made enormous profits out of 
a prohibitive tariff on steel. Our schools and col- 
leges are doing valiant service in behalf of those 
who gain economic ends through political means. 

Every year a promiscuous throng of young men 
are trained for professions for which they have no 
aptitude because the curriculum is directed that 
way and they have little choice. It is of no con- 
sequence, apparently, that young men trained for 
professional careers find the professions over- 
crowded, unremunerative and disappointing. The 
clientless lawyers, the penniless writers and mis- 
placed physicians have a hard struggle for exist- 
ence. They might have been good farmers, skilled 



TRAINING FOR CITIZENSHIP 351 

artisans or successful tradesmen, and they would 
have been, had their training been in any one of 
these directions. They were not trained for these 
vocations because the public school curriculum of- 
fered no opportunity for such. They contribute 
their misguided careers to a system of exploitation 
partly a natural growth yet consciously fostered, 
which is waiting to swallow them up. They work 
long hours, make many sacrifices, suffer the pinch of 
poverty for a high-school and college education and 
in the end must know that effort has been futile. 
Having tried and failed, they go through life ac- 
cepting their lot as one of the pranks of Fate,*and 
feeling that somehow their failure is an individual 
matter when, as a matter of fact, it is a social crime. 
There is one other course they may pursue. They 
may become pettifogging lawyers, hack writers or 
quack physicians and, therefore, the most danger- 
ous factors in our citizenship. 

The curriculum now followed offers a wealth of 
inspiration to the class already possessed of suffi- 
cient wealth to enjoy it. But it offers little to the 
economically dependent class. In an age when the 
dollar mark is the badge of human virtue, Latin 
and Greek are poor tools in the hands of the work- 
ing man's sons and daughters. Even Charles Francis 
Adams, the younger, whose advantages were above 
those of the average young man, was moved to com- 



352 LEARNING TO EARN 

plain, "In these days of repeating rifles, Harvard 
sent me and my classmates out into the strife 
equipped with shields and swords and javelins." 

Census figures show that nearly twenty-five thou- 
sand young men and women were held as delin- 
quents in various institutions in 1910. The peniten- 
tiaries, jails and almshouses contained nearly five 
times that number. A large majority of the one 
hundred and thirty-odd thousand were learning the 
rudiments of a trade, first because the state com- 
pelled them to do so, and second, because it was their 
first opportunity to acquire scientific preparation for 
productive and remunerative labor. Probably three- 
fourths of all the people admitted to the peniten- 
tiaries of the United States have no trade. 
Eighty-one per cent, of the inmates of the Eastern 
Penitentiary of Pennsylvania and the Indiana State 
Reformatory, in typical periods, were without a 
trade. 

Another striking fact in the census report on ju- 
venile delinquents is that the leading crimes for 
which the twenty-five thousand young men and 
women were held in institutions in 1910 were lar- 
ceny and burglary. Very good reason appears for 
believing that these crimes were the result of a fail- 
ure of the state to train the young men and women 
to earn a livelihood by honorable and productive 
labor. 

Crime and delinquency are no longer regarded as 



TRAINING FOR CITIZENSHIP 353 

wholly personal or individual matters. The cases 
are personal and individual, but the causes lie deep 
in our social fabric and as a problem of raising the 
level of citizenship the burden of crime and delin- 
quency rests with the state and society of which our 
unfortunate classes are a part. 

Since our development, during the hundred-odd 
years of the republic, has been emphatically indus- 
trial rather than intellectual or classical we may won- 
der that the cast of our citizenship does not resemble 
the mold of our curriculum, or rather at the fail- 
ure of the curriculum naturally to adapt itself to 
our most glaring educational needs. 

Notwithstanding our emphasis on classical sub- 
jects, we have little to show for our pains in this 
particular. We have produced a very few men of 
world eminence in art or literature. Although our 
scientists have produced epochal inventions and 
have made some revolutionary discoveries, almost 
invariably they owe little of their genius or inspira- 
tion to our school system. Our curriculum does not 
foster scientific research in the industrial world, and 
our development in this particular is due largely to 
our great natural resources. This development, in 
spite of the curriculum, has furnished the invita- 
tion to science and invention. The school system 
has done little. 

Young men and women who come under the influ- 
ence of our formal education learn thoroughly the 



354 LEARNING TO EARN 

scope of their privileges and immunities as citizens 
of the repubhc, but in the pubhc schools they will 
hear little said about their duties as citizens. There 
is abundant emphasis on their theoretical political 
power under the universal franchise but little direc- 
tion as to the intelligent use of the ballot. We spend 
vast sums of money to preserve the traditions of 
Roman and Greek democracies and practically none 
to perfect the operation of our own. Aside from 
the fact that we waste at least one billion dollars 
every year in maintaining our federal, state, county 
and city governments, they are still pitiably ineffi- 
cient, honeycombed with petty graft, and stupid. 

Farmers who are honestly devoted to improved 
roads, for instance, are duped into support of Lin- 
coln highways or Dixie highways which for them 
can have little economic advantage. In the mean- 
time, the local roads which they do use are allowed 
to suffer for want of competent engineers and scien- 
tific methods. People in the cities suffer growing 
misery from dust, smoke and noise because the men 
whom they elect to office are so wanting in informa- 
tion that they do not know how to attack these prob- 
lems. The city beautiful has become the city hide- 
ous. Suburbanites pay the nickel for the seat on the 
street-car they do not get and hang to a strap be- 
cause the company has convinced them there is no 
other way. The company also convinces the candi- 
date for office there is no other way when it sends 



TRAINING FOR CITIZENSHIP 355 

in its check as a contribution to his campaign. Tene- 
ments reek with filth and disease ; poverty, crime and 
pestilence are probably gaining on the population. 
Segregated vice is suffered to exist because it is the 
inevitable consequence of licensed intemperance, as 
well as one of its causes. That two or three thou- 
sand men in a single county are disfranchised for 
selling their votes or a group of city officials impris- 
oned for election frauds is unimportant, except as it 
goes to show there must be- other counties where 
large numbers of voters sell their franchise and keep 
out of court, and other city officials who are guilty 
of equally nefarious though less flagrant frauds ^nd 
who have not been punished. At this time a man 
who has been proved under the law to be a corrup- 
tionist is a member of the constitutional convention 
of a great state and will assist in framing the basic 
law of that commonwealth. This is the order of 
citizenship we get under a dilettante system of edu- 
cation which prepares young men and young women 
for, say, a most successful courtship, but there stops. 
If no better conditions could be realized it would 
be useless to condemn and inexcusable to criticize. 
Presently a system superior to formal education as 
a basis of useful citizenship will be presented. 

To summarize what has been said of an educa- 
tional system which fails to produce useful citizens : 
(1) Lack of efficient training for industry has per- 
mitted one class of citizens to prey upon the igno- 



356 LEARNING TO EARN 

ranee and inaptitude of a much larger class. (2) 
Vocational misfits, arising out of the narrowly re- 
stricted system of education, for want of an honor- 
able means to earn a livelihood resort to sharp 
practises and become parasites in society. ( 3 ) Our 
penal institutions furnish eloquent testimony of the 
social disaster resulting from the failure to train 
young men for an honorable calling. (4) Due to 
an unparalleled wealth of natural resources, our de- 
velopment is almost wholly industrial, and even our 
classical curriculum has little to show for its effort. 
(5) Finally, government is wasteful and inefficient 
and our people are failing in the simplest duties of 
citizenship. 

It hardly seems necessary to call attention to the 
relation between these conditions and useful citizen- 
ship, the ideal we have set up as the mission of edu- 
cation. It requires no great imagination to under- 
stand that the working man, who must battle with 
his master for primary justice — for the right to live 
decently — can not perform adequately the duties of 
a useful citizen ; nor any occult power to appreciate 
the shortcomings of the industrial autocrat as a use- 
ful citizen. We can not very well classify occupa- 
tional misfits or spurious products of professional 
schools as useful citizens. Delinquents hardly fall 
in this category and men who are trained for one 
thing and follow another, however fast profits or 
earnings accumulate, scarcely realize their fullest 



TRAINING FOR CITIZENSHIP 357 

native capacity for useful citizenship. Nor can we 
associate the mismanagement of public business, the 
stupidity of public servants with the highest order 
of citizenship in this republic. 

How can a program of education which provides 
for intelligent and scientific training for a trade, for 
some remunerative and pleasant work contribute to 
make men more useful as citizens ? In the first place, 
as long as the worker is poorly trained, as long as 
he is an inefficient factor in production and his place 
is easily filled, he can be dominated through fear of 
losing a poor job. Let the worker become a skilled 
artisan or let him through combination or coojJiera- 
tion gain control of the supply of the product which 
he has to sell — then he becomes a potent factor in 
determining hours, wages and working conditions. 
Moreover, as soon as he becomes a skilled worker 
his power and importance as a citizen are enhanced 
and he begins to tamper with the machinery at the 
source of his master's political strength. 

"We must keep in mind," says Arthur D. Dean,^ 
"that simple and balanced justice make it necessary 
to give to the wage-earner and to common industries 
such equivalent as we can for what the present 
schools are doing for those with generous incomes 
and for the professional and managing vocations." 

Industrial education promises to the individual 



The Worker and the State, p. 344. 



358 LEARNING TO EARN 

worker intense specialization of the mind and hand 
for a definite vocation. It implies a greater measure 
of individual efficiency, and hence, in the aggregate, 
a greater measure of social efficiency. As industrial 
efficiency increases, so will the earnings of industrial 
workers and their opportunities to enjoy the com- 
forts of life. Happiness should be more widely dif- 
fused because wholesome living will be more gen- 
eral. May we not expect, under these improved 
conditions, a more alert, a more attentive and en- 
lightened citizenship? Good government is not to 
be expected from the group which subsists by ex- 
ploitation. Good government, if it comes at all, 
must come through the great mass of people who, 
besides being efficient workmen commanding com- 
fortable wages, have sufficient leisure to devote to 
the duties of citizenship. We do not expect the 
shiftless workman to perform the duties of useful 
citizenship; shiftless as a workman, he will be shift- 
less as a citizen. Is it not quite as reasonable to 
expect the efficient workman — miner, plumber, shop- 
keeper, farmer, engineer, bookkeeper, housewife — 
also to be efficient as a citizen? 

If education for industry, for agriculture, for 
business, for the home, has a single ultimate promise 
it is that there is to be an end to the encroachments 
of one class on another. It promises the greatest 
good for every individual in society — for all of the 
thirty-eight million people in this country engaged 



TRAINING FOR CITIZENSHIP 359 

in gainful occupations. It is education not for mi- 
norities, not for majorities, but for all the people. 
All this, surely, is the substance of useful citizenship. 

There can be no question concerning the efficiency 
of vocational education as a factor in citizenship if 
it will reduce the number of square pegs for round 
holes; if young men and women can be placed more 
advantageously in work they like to do and in work 
which will yield them a comfortable living. This 
phase of the problem is discussed elsewhere. Edu- 
cation, scientific training for life, is offered not for 
three per cent, of the people, but for approximately 
one hundred per cent. 

It has been a common expression in this country 
that one has to break into a penitentiary to learn a 
trade. More than fifteen years ago the late Charles 
R. Henderson expressed the opinion that "the prin- 
ciples of industrial training will transform our pris- 
ons and even make them suggestive and instructive 
in respect to the educational processes of the outside 
world of freedom." Prisons and reformatories, 
strange as it may seem, have pointed the way to a 
universal system of industrial education. When we 
discovered that industrial training is good for delin- 
quents we began to wonder whether it would not be 
good for boys and girls before they have had a 
chance to become delinquents. To confine trade 
training to reformatories and prisons is like locking 
the door after the horse is stolen, except that it is a 



360 LEARNING TO EARN 

bit more disastrous to society to lose a boy by neg- 
lecting him than to lose a horse by leaving the door 
unlocked. The importance of compulsory trade 
training for young men and women has magical pos- 
sibilities as a preventive for delinquency and crime 
and hence as a factor in citizenship. 

Public education was undertaken in this country 
on the theory that the state, for its own protection 
and perpetuity, should educate its citizens to perform 
their duties as such. Discovery of unsurpassed nat- 
ural resources has transformed the very fabric of 
our civilization, but the dominant purpose of educa- 
tion has scarcely changed. Classical antiquities are 
the ruling order of instruction, the daily program 
of study. If the level of citizenship has fallen, un- 
der classical forms of instruction, we can hardly be 
surprised since prevailing educational ideals are 
more or less pointless in the new civilization. Edu- 
cation needs to catch up with the dominant indus- 
trial, agricultural, commercial and domestic needs 
of the day if citizenship is to attain its former level. 
Moreover, if useful citizenship is once attained, it 
can only maintain a given standard of usefulness if 
education keeps pace with our vocational interests. 

What can education do to remedy the indifference 
of public officials, the mismanagement of public af- 
fairs? Rather, what can education do in behalf of 
efficient government that it is not already doing? 
Allowing for the inherent defects of democratic 



TRAINING FOR CITIZENSHIP 361 

government— and it must be admitted that popular 
government naturally lacks the mechanical order and 
rigid precision of autocracies or tyrannies — there is 
still a vast unexplored hinterland in the domain of 
citizenship that awaits the conquest of education. 

Assuming that the crux of useful citizenship is an 
enlightened and vigilant electorate, ours is a prob- 
lem of diffusing intelligence and inspiring moral 
courage. People know little about their government 
except what they are told in the passion and fever 
of political campaigns, which is generally wrong. 
The late Senator Aldrich was authority for the 
statement that there is an annual waste of three hun- 
dred million dollars in our federal government, yet 
the average man has not the remotest idea of where 
the waste is except to entertain the general suspicion 
that it is everywhere. Even Mr. Aldrich, who had 
a long experience in the United States Senate, failed 
to disclose the sources of the leaks. Every two 
years we elect four or five hundred men to the 
lower house of Congress, who are honored citizens 
"back home" and who, nevertheless, yield to a half 
dozen men in Congress because only they know any- 
thing about government. We elect tax appraisers, 
members of state legislatures, mayors of great cities, 
even governors of states, men who have only vague 
notions of the science of government, in the same 
offhand way. 

What can education do here ? On the theory that 



362 LEARNING TO EARN 

the public service is a distinct vocation, education 
can train specifically for public service. Education 
can train tax appraisers, probably members of 
state legislatures, certainly mayors and perhaps gov- 
ernors. Needless to say it is already done in some 
parts of the world and in this country the germs are 
already well planted in the city manager idea of 
municipal government. 

Experts in government is an offensive idea to po- 
litical bosses but a very practical idea from the 
standpoint of better government. 

It is not sufficient, however, to educate for citizen- 
ship only those persons who are to fill public office. 
Probably if the so-called rank and file were better 
informed the specific training for public service 
would follow as a matter of course. The common 
man needs to know more about his government, es- 
pecially the government nearest to him. Education 
for government must begin in the public schools. 
Public instruction in civics at present lacks concrete- 
ness because it is based on text-books that are ob- 
solete or irrelevant and attempted by teachers with 
no special preparation for the work and no first- 
hand knowledge. Moreover, training for citizen- 
ship is probably the most dynamic program which 
education may undertake and it must keep time 
with political and economic development. The best 
basis for instruction in citizenship, given an enlight- 
ened and skilful teacher, would be a good news- 



TRAINING FOR CITIZENSHIP 363 

paper clipping service, since many of the leading 
magazines have lapsed into "innocuous desuetude." 
Training for citizenship in the public schools has 
more than one channel to follow, though their 
boundaries are sharply defined by the dominant vo- 
cational interests of the community. While the 
city schools must concern themselves with the abate- 
ment of the smoke nuisance, the suppression of use- 
less noises, city planning, municipal ownership, the 
elimination of dust, the regulation of traffic, public 
safety, street paving, franchises and the organization 
of city government, the rural schools will deal with 
a different group of problems. Here good roads, 
cooperation, tenancy, agricultural credit, commu- 
nity centers, legislation for the control of products 
used, raised or sold on the farm, the organization 
of the various official agencies for promoting agri- 
culture, the intimate workings of township, county 
and state government are the dominant interests. 
Certain subjects or problems are common or of 
interest to both city and country — taxation, schools, 
markets, transportation, socialism, civil service, pri- 
mary election reform and the courts. In the realm 
of useful citizenship, certain subjects or problems 
are patent to occupational interests, as, for instance, 
those young men and women who have chosen a 
business career should know about markets, the con- 
sular system, monopolies, banking, interlocking di- 
rectorates, currency and industrial insurance, not 



.364 LEARNING TO EARN 

merely as phases of business, but as phases of good 
citizenship. Industrial workers are especially con- 
cerned with unemployment, collective bargaining, 
strikes and lockouts, industrial arbitration, social 
insurance, housing, child labor, cooperation and 
industrial safety. Some of these subjects are of 
immediate interest and practical value to young 
women being educated for the home. 

By no means is the program to be completed in 
the prevocational schools. As much as possible 
should be given as soon as possible, though some of 
these subjects and problems are beyond the compre- 
hension of the prevocational student. They will re- 
main for the vocational school proper or even in 
some cases for institutions in advance of the voca- 
tional school. 

Our greatest fear for the failure to realize the 
program lies in the inability of teachers to compre- 
hend and execute it. We need, therefore, specific 
training of teachers for this vital work. 

It must not be taken for granted that formal in- 
struction in our current public questions only will 
guarantee useful citizenship. True, it is an essential 
element, but intellectual independence, moral cour- 
age and character are deciding factors in the life of 
the nation. Instruction in public affairs is chaff be- 
fore a strong wind unless the grandeur of noble pub- 
lic service, the righteousness of intellectual freedom, 
the morality of useful citizenship be burned deeply 



TRAINING FOR CITIZENSHIP 365 

in the hearts of young men and women. In poH- 
tics, "the old order changeth." Education, too, must 
change its dress. 

'The old order is the persistent expression of so- 
cial, political and educational aristocracy. The new 
order is the advance agent of educational and indus- 
trial democracy. The new order is as sure to per- 
sist as the republic is to endure, for it is the logical 
outworking of the democracy of the nation."^ 

" Andrew S. Draper, 



CHAPTER XIX 



THE IDEAL SCHOOL 



Socializing the school— Meeting the needs of all— No age lim- 
its to its service — All education at public expense and under 
public management— Studying the vocations— Charting blind 
alleys— Keeping abreast of the times— Outline of plan— Work- 
ing with workers — The fruits. 

The program of education outlined in the forego- 
ing chapters means a complete socializing of the 
public school system in order to meet the needs 
of an industrial society and to realize the ideals set 
forth. The school should become the center from 
which will radiate all activities designed to better 
human conditions through education. The ideal 
school will be one which stands in the forefront of 
our onward moving civilization, discerning new ten- 
dencies, discovering and keeping abreast of discov- 
ery of new truths of science and art, analyzing the 
ramifications of industrial and social progress and 
seeking to guide the young and old alike by educa- 
tion into ways of life and industry which shall en- 
able them to live completely according to their ca- 
pacities and their more or less fixed circumstances. 

The school must be universal in its scope both 
as to its pupils and its subject-matter. Every per- 

366 



THE IDEAL SCHOOL Z67 

son should be given his opportunity to reahze all 
that he is capable of realizing for himself and for 
society and no subject should be omitted which may 
aid in any adequate way to the promotion of indi- 
vidual and social welfare. True democracy de- 
mands equality of but not identity of opportunity. 
All grades of mental and physical capacity should 
have an equal chance for their fullest development. 
A mere glance at the conditions of men and 
women will be sufficient to prove the point if we 
accept democracy as a fact and attempt to live up 
to its implications. Some are capable of a cer- 
tain development, but are not capable of a higher 
development. Some find their means of expression 
through written and printed symbols and some 
through work with their hands in wood, stone, iron 
and fabrics. Some find joy in work which to others 
is drudgery. The work of the world must be done 
and "the varied kinds of labor will, as now, differ 
in the degree of talent required to perform them."^ 
But as Ward further points out "the natural differ- 
ences of intellectual capacity will be great enough 
to furnish each vocation with laborers who are cap- 
able of performing its duties but not capable of per- 
forming those of higher grades. The adaptation 
must necessarily be more complete than now, when 
sages do menial service and fools rule empires. The 
fitness of things will then reach its highest stage 



*Ward, Dynamic Sociology, Vol. II, p. 601, 



36S LEARNING TO EARN 

of completeness and servants, as well as poets, will 
be born, not made." Mediocrity being the normal 
state of the human intellect "the real need is to 
devise the means necessary to render mediocrity, 
such as it is, more comfortable."^ 

The ideal school will therefore take account of 
the possibilities of training the many intellects of 
infinite variations in such a way as to make their 
possessors more effective factors in economic, social 
and civic affairs. 

The ideal school will know no limits. It will be- 
gin with the earliest possible moment and will con- 
tinue throughout life. It will make of boys and 
girls continuous students when they have left the 
school and have gone to work in stores, offices, fac- 
tories, workshops, forests, on the farms or in the 
professions. It will be a constant guide for ex- 
perience and by using the data of experience, it will 
enlarge the common life by giving a basis upon 
which the crudest intellect may work. Blind ex- 
perience profits nothing, but experience touched 
with knowledge forms the Aladdin lamp for the 
mass of common people. The school can not afford 
to ignore the effective and permanent results of ex- 
perience guided by education in its beneficial effects 
upon the human race in making a more "comfort- 
able subsistence" and a fuller life. 

When we have said that the school should be uni- 

^ Ward, Dynamic Sociology, Vol. II, p. 600, 



THE IDEAL SCHOOL 369 

versal we have directly set up the requirement that 
it shall be at public expense and under public man- 
agement. Democracy demands that a matter so 
vital to all the people shall be under the control of 
the people. Moreover private enterprise or philan- 
thropy would not supply the universal need. Private 
enterprise seeks profit and profit can not be found in 
universal education; philanthropy seeks out the ex- 
ceptional need, and the mass of people whose educa- 
tion can not be made profitable, or who do not make 
a special appeal, are left out. 

Private enterprise in education, by seeking profit, 
is baneful in its influence. Witness the low estate 
of medical education when schools were operated 
for profit a few years ago. They gave enough in- 
struction to get the students' money, but not enough 
to satisfy the requirements of society. Or witness 
the great numbers of so-called "business colleges" 
which give a commercial education in from one to 
six months. They are helpful, to be sure, but they 
do not give sufficient education to satisfy the re- 
quirements of business or of the workers. Public 
management and control of the ideal educational 
system are necessary also, to prevent the over- 
crowding of some vocation and the undermanning 
of others, which is so pronounced in our day. By 
offering many-sided opportunities the youth are led 
into many suitable vocations. Private enterprise, 
by offering a chance in a few vocations which it 



370 LEARNING TO EARN 

finds profitable to teach, encourages too many to 
enter those vocations. Thus the chance afforded to 
young men a few years ago to study medicine in a 
privately owned college coupled with a lack of facil- 
ities to study some other vocation, perhaps more 
suitable to them, led to the attempted training of too 
many poor physicians. Private, philanthropic and 
public facilities afforded for the study of law, phar- 
macy and engineering have accentuated the vicious 
distribution to the disadvantage of those professions 
and the public. 

The implication is plain that anything short of 
universal education is both undemocratic and un- 
social. Society should not extend opportunities to 
some without extending equal if not identical op- 
portunities to all. Since universal education is an 
absolute requirement for equal justice and can not 
be acquired under a private system, it becomes the 
duty of the public to take charge of the entire educa- 
tional system in order that the ideal shall be 
approached and social stability maintained. 

The part of the school in the care of the indi- 
vidual has" been constantly increasing and will 
doubtless continue to increase until eventually the 
total care of youth will be under the guidance of the 
school from the time they enter until they have 
established themselves reasonably well in the work 
of the world. The ideal educational system accepts 
the responsibility for such guidance without flinch- 



THE IDEAL SCHOOL 371 

ing. Indeed, it seeks the responsibility by a close 
analysis of the educational needs of all persons in all 
walks of life. 

Recognizing the need of a scientific approach to 
the problem of educating all of the people the school 
surveys the field of the vocations to learn the pos- 
sibilities of education in each and to gather the 
data upon which to build courses which shall help 
in the practical solution of the vocational problems 
of workers. It will look into the processes of agri- 
culture to determine the place of education in that 
vocation. It will strive to learn what the farmer 
needs to know which experience does not siij)ply 
and will devise practical methods to place its find- 
ings within the farmer's reach. The school will 
analyze trades, industries and commercial pursuits 
to ascertain what the worker needs in skill and 
knowledge; how far that knowledge and skill can 
be obtained in commerce and industry ; and how far 
the schools can supply that knowledge and skill that 
the worker needs for thorough efficiency. The 
school will also learn the conditions of success in 
trades, industries and commercial pursuits ; the eco- 
nomic rewards offered; the conditions of entrance; 
the physical requirements for success and the occu- 
pational hazards from accident and disease. It will 
chart the "blind alleys" of commerce and industry 
and will post a sign "no thoroughfare" upon those 
which do not promise a successful career. It will 



372 LEARNING TO EARN 

not let young people enter uneconomic employment 
or "blind alleys" without fair warning. The ideal 
school will also analyze the processes required in 
making and maintaining the home and will see 
wherein the home-makers need training to realize 
the fullest possibilities of living under modern eco- 
nomic and social conditions. 

The ideal school will do more than merely ana- 
lyze the existing conditions. It will keep abreast of 
the discovery of new truth and new applications of 
existing knowledge. It will learn of the latest im- 
proved farm machinery, the latest office devices; 
the most up-to-date shop machinery and tools; the 
labor-saving devices in household equipment; and 
the economic and social changes which affect the 
people. It will be a medium through which progress 
may be a reality to all the workers in our common 
Hfe. 

The school will provide for the total care of the 
educational welfare of youth. As expressed by 
Professor Henry Suzzalo in the Report of the Com- 
mittee on Economy of Time in Education, "This 
total care of the individual will include an efficient 
and economical system of education, the mechanism 
of which will prepare for three related but distinct 
types of adjustment." There will be : 

1. A series of general, cultural, liberal or com- 
mon schools — elementary, secondary and collegiate 
— ^the function of which will be to train men for the 



THE IDEAL SCHOOL 373 

maintenance of a progressive civilization through 
efficient membership in the common human institu- 
tions in which each man must inevitably be a unit of 
influence ; 

2. A series of more or less specialized vocational 
schools extending from trade to professional educa- 
tion — the purpose of which will be to acquaint men 
with the influences, appreciations and activities that 
are essential to personal working power in a chosen 
occupation ; 

3. A varied series of cooperations between 
school and through institutions which will guarantee 
an apprenticeship under actual living and worl^ng 
conditions, the supervision of which is to be domi- 
nated by educational ideals and controls that guar- 
antee that the growth of the apprentice shall be a 
more important consideration than his commercial 
productiveness. 

To this should be added a fourth form of educa- 
tion akin to the third which is cooperative with the 
economic institutions of men after the period of 
total care has passed, consisting of those various 
forms of cooperation through evening courses, 
correspondence study, extension work and voca- 
tional reading which seek to make education a life- 
long process by supplementing experience of the 
worker with useful knowledge. 

The child enters the ideal school at six years of 
age and all of the time of all of the children for six 



374 LEARNING TO EARN 

or eight years is devoted to that fundamental educa- 
tion which is necessary to establish sound "habits, 
attitudes and ideals" ; to give the minimum of nec- 
essary information for the mass of youth; and to 
develop "power, inspiration and ability to go it 
alone." In this period all youth should acquire the 
fundamental tools of knowledge — reading, writing, 
arithmetic and composition — and become acquainted 
with the data of their environment. By proper 
correlation they should learn simple elements of 
chemistry, biology and physics; simple business 
practises; simple art; music; elements of hygiene 
and methods of physical training; and some ele- 
ments of civics and social economics; handwork in 
the form of manual training, domestic science for 
girls, and the elements of agriculture should be 
woven in the right proportions into the work of the 
school. 

The ideal school will make provision for the ex- 
ceptional child, both the one who is backward and 
the one who can proceed more rapidly. The "lock 
step" will be broken up and an effort will be made 
to bring out the latent talents of the pupils. By this 
means, the interests of pupils will be aroused, and 
vocational tendencies or aptitudes discovered. 

This period of education being the one when all 
of the children are subject to the influence of the 
school, it follows that the best efforts should be put 
forth to transmit to all as much of "the heritage of 



THE IDEAL SCHOOL 375 

the race" as they are capable of assimilating. De- 
mocracy demands that the best that can be offered 
should be placed at the disposal of youth in this 
period of universal attendance. 

At the close of the period of preliminary educa- 
tion provision will be made in the ideal school for a 
widely diversified system which will offer the kinds 
of education by which the whole people may profit. 
At present, there is ample chance for youth to go to 
high school or college to get a broader general edu- 
cation or to enter a vocational school leading to a 
profession. Technical and commercial high schools 
with broad curriculums are broadening the c^iance 
for preparation in wider fields of activity and are 
rapidly displacing the classical high schools. It is a 
move in the direction of the ideal school which seeks 
to add to the present facilities many different kinds 
of vocational schools which prepare youth for use- 
ful employment while giving them broad educa- 
tional foundations. The school should recognize 
the wide differences in mental and physical capacity 
and give a chance for preparation to all alike. The 
school will therefore provide for as many vocational 
schools as an analysis of conditions will show to be 
needed and will provide general foundation courses 
leading to many vocations for which it does not 
seem feasible to prepare directly. 

The third type of education required in a school 
which seeks to care for the whole educational 



376 LEARNING TO EARN 

welfare of youth will be a diversified scheme of co- 
operation with the environing world of industry, 
business, farm and home. By a broad educational 
curriculum including vocational schools and courses 
a larger proportion of youth will be directly cared 
for by the school. But for reasons, apparent to all, 
many children will leave school as soon as the com- 
pulsory period has passed. These children have 
heretofore been left to their fate by the schools, but 
the ideal school does not shirk the responsibility of 
meeting their needs. It seeks first to find out if 
v/ays may not be devised to help the pupil to remain 
in school. Failing in that it seeks to cooperate with 
a suitable employment by which the pupil may work 
a part of the time and still continue a part of the 
time in school — ^the ideal arrangement being alter- 
nately, a week in school and a week at work. If this 
arrangement fails, the school permits the child to go 
to work, but requires that the employer give a few 
hours off each week, during which the child must 
come back to take regular courses in the schools. 
This care by the school will be compulsory up to 
eighteen years of age. Two types of training are 
there provided; first, the continuation school in 
which the general education of the youth is contin- 
ued to enlarge his civic intelligence and to give vo- 
cational direction; second, the trade extension 
courses in which the training is intended to supple- 
ment the vocational work and prepare for greater 



THE IDEAL SCHOOL 377 

perfection in it. The first is for those who are at 
work in "blind alley" jobs or who have not chosen 
a permanent vocation; the second is designed for 
those who have chosen a vocation and desire to 
master it fully. The school recognizes the futility 
of trying to teach a vocation to a boy in a few hours 
a week, but recognizes the tremendous value of a 
few hours of supplementary education to the youth 
already engaged in a promising vocation. It would 
attempt to enlarge the general intelligence and give 
a vocational bent to the youth in an unpromising job 
and it would seek to lead such youth into more 
skilled employments where trade extension courses 
would function. To the girl in industry it would 
give equal care for a supplementary education for 
efficiency, but would recognize the larger aspects of 
the girl's life as a home-maker and would require 
regular courses of instruction to enable the mass of 
girls who are in automatic employments to get the 
best preparation possible for their permanent vo- 
cation. 

If the vocational schools and part-time arrange- 
ments have been properly developed the ideal school 
will be in a position to work effectively with men 
and women after they have passed beyond the time 
of school attendance. The spirit of self-reliance 
brought about by self -education will carry the in- 
quiring workers into the evening school, extension 
work, correspondence study, or intelligent reading. 



Z7^ LEARNING TO EARN 

Many will find the means thereby to enlarge their 
knowledge and increase their skill in their chosen 
vocation. Many will find a means of refitting them- 
selves to their environment by finding a way out of 
an unpromising vocation and into a congenial em- 
ployment. All will benefit by instruction which 
keeps them abreast of the times in their vocation, 
and civic efficiency will be a splendid by-product. 

The ideal school system which brings all of the 
children and the whole of each child to school from 
six to fourteen ; which provides for a complete sys- 
tem suitable to all whether they go into the ranks of 
a profession or a trade; which extends efficient edu- 
cation compulsorily to all youth who have gone to 
work until they are eighteen years of age; and 
which gives the opportunity for an effective contin- 
uation education to all persons throughout life, will 
assuredly give results which will be shown in per- 
sonal efficiency and the character that goes with it ; 
physical fitness with its promise for future genera- 
tions; more efficient industry and agriculture with 
their results in national welfare; conservation of 
vital and natural resources; thrift in management 
of personal and public business; a stable social 
democracy in which all shall be equal in opportu- 
nity; and a culture which shall be a reality to all. 

THE END 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 



BIBLIOGRAPHIES 

Brooklyn (N. Y.) Public Library. Choosing an Occupation; 
a list of books and references on vocational choice, guid- 
ance and training in the Brooklyn Public Library. 1913. 
y' National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education. 
Selected Bibliography on Industrial Education; prep, by 
C R. Richards. July, 1907. (Bui. No. 2.) 
/- New York (state) University. Division of Vocational 
Schools. List of Helpful Publications concerning Voca- 
tional Instruction; prep, by L. A. Wilson, 1914. (Univ. of 
the state of N. Y. Bui. No. 569, June 15, 1914.) 

U. S. Bureau of Education. Bibliography, In School and the 
Start in Life; a study of the relation between school and 
employment in England, Scotland and Germany; by%Ieyer 
Bloomfield. Pp. 133-143. Govt, print, off., 1914. (Bui. 
1914, No. 4, wh. No. 575.) 

Bibliography of Education in Agriculture and Home 

Economics. Govt, print, off., 1912. (Bui. 1912, No. 10, wh. 
No. 481.) 

Bibliography of Industrial, Vocational and Trade Edu- 



cation. Govt, print, off., 1913. (Bui. 1913, No. 22, wh. 
No. 532.) 

List of References on Education for the Home: Cities 

and Tozvns Teaching Household Arts. In Education for 
the Home; by B. R. Andrews. Pt. 4. Govt, print, off., 
1915. (Bui. 1914, No. 39, wh. No. 613.) 

GENERAL REFERENCES 

American Academy of Political and Social Science. Indus- 
trial Education. 1909. (Annals, V. 23, No. 1, Jan., 1909.) 

American Federation of Labor. Committee on Industrin.l 
Education. Report, 1909; comp. and ed. by C. H. Winslow. 
Govt, print, off., 1912. (U. S. Congress, 62d ses. Sen. 
Doc. No. 936.) 

381 



382 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

American School of Home Economics. Library of Home 
Economics; a complete home study course in the new pro- 
fession of home making and art of right living, 12 v. 
1907-1911. 

Ayres, Leonard Porter. Constant and Variable Occupations 
and Their Bearing on Problems of Vocational Education. 
1914. (Russell Sage Foundation. Pam. pub. E 136. Div. 
of educ.) 

Laggards in Our Schools. Char. Pub. Co., 1909. (Rus- 
sell Sage Foundation.) 

Bailey, L. H. Country-Life Movement in the United States^ 
Macmillan, 1911. (Rural outlook ser.) 

State and the Farmer. Macmillan, 1908. 

Training of Farmers. Century, 1909. 

Bloomfield, Meyer. Vocational Guidance of Youth. Hough- 
ton, 1911. (Riverside educational monographs.) 

Brandeis, Louis J. Business — A Profession. Small, 1914. 

Bricker, G. A. Teaching of Agriculture in the High School. 
Macmillan, 1911. 

Brooks, John Graham. Cooperation and Socialism. In the 
New RepubHc, Jan. 23, 1915. Pp. 21-23. 

Butler, Nicholas Murray. Vocational Education; an address 
before the Commercial Club of Chicago, Dec. 14, 1912. 
Coml. Club of Chi., 1913. 

Butterfield, Kenyon L. Chapters in Rural Progress. Univ. 
of Chi. Press, 1908. 

Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. 
Medical Education in the United States and Canada; by 
Abraham Flexner. N. Y. 1910. (Bui. 4.) 

Cheney, Howell. School and the Shop from an Employer's 
Point of View; an address before the National Society for 
the Promotion of Industrial Education, Boston, Nov. 17-19, 
1910. 

Country Life Commission. Report. Govt, print, off., 1909. 
(U. S. Congress, 60th, 2d ses. Sen. Doc. No. 70S.) 

Cyclopedia of American Agriculture ; a popular survey of ag- 
ricultural conditions, practices and ideals in the United 
States and Canada; ed. by L. H. Bailey. 3 v. Macmillan, 
1907. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 383 

Davenport, Eugene. Education for Efficiency. Heath, 1909. 

Dean, Arthur D. The Progressive Element in Education; 
commencement address at Alfred University, June, 191 3. 

Worker and the State ; a study of education for indus- 
trial workers. Century, 1910. 

Dearie, N. B. Industrial Training with Special Reference to 
the Conditions Prevailing in London. King, 1914. (Studies 
in economics and political science.) 

Dewey, John. School and Society. Ed. 5. Univ. of Chi., 1900. 

Draper, Andrew S. Agriculture and Its Educational Needs. 
Bardeen, 1909. 

American Education. Houghton, 1909. 

Eliot, Charles W. Value During Education of the Life- 
Career Motive. In National Education Association. Pro- 
ceedings, 1910, pp. 133-141. 

Foght, Harold W. American Rural School: its chanficter- 
istics, its future and its problems. Macmillan, 1910. 

Gillette, John M. Vocational Education. Amer. Book Co., 
1910. 

Goldmark, Josephine. Fatigue and Efficiency, a study in in- 
dustry. Char. Pub. Co., 1912. (Russell Sage Foundation.) 

Hanus, Paul H. Beginnings in Industrial Education. Hough- 
ton, 1908. 

Herrick, Cheesman. Meaning and Practice of Commercial 
Education. Macmillan, 1904. 

Indiana Commission on Industrial and Agricultural Educa- 
tion. Report, 1912. Burford, Indianapolis, 1912. 

Indianapolis (Ind.) Chamber of Commerce. Committee on 
Education. Part-Time Education in Indianapolis. 1914. 

Jefferson, Thomas. Writings; ed. by H. A. Washington. 9 v. 
Washington, 1853. 

Kerschensteiner, Georg Michael Anton. Idea of the Industrial 
School; tr. by Rudolf Pintner, Macmillan, 1913. 

Three Lectures on Vocational Training, delivered in 

America under the auspices of the National Society for the 
Promotion of Industrial Education. Com!. Club of Chi., 
1911. 



384 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

King, Irving. Social Aspects of Education; a book of sources 

and original discussions, with annotated bibliographies. 

Macmillan, 1912. 
Lake Placid Conference on Home Economics. Proceedings, 

iSgg to date. Lake Placid Club, Essex Co., N. Y. 
LaSalle, M. A., and Wiley, K. E. Vocations for Girls, 

Houghton, 1913. 
Leavitt, Frank M. Examples of Industrial Education. Ginn, 

1912. 
Lewis, St. Elmo. Value of the Specialised Library for the 

Business Man, the Salesman or the Shop Expert, In Spe- 
cial libraries. May, 1913. Pp. 69-72. 
Massachusetts Board of Education. Needs and Possibilities 

of Part-Time Education; a special report submitted to the 

Legislature, Jan., 1913. State printers, 1913. 
Minneapolis (Minn.) Teachers' Club. Vocational Survey of 

Minneapolis, 1913. Minneapolis Teachers* Club. 
Miinsterberg, Hugo. Psychology and Industrial Efficiency. 

Houghton, 1913. 
National Association of Manufacturers of the United States 

of America. Committee on Industrial Education. Report. 

1912. (No. 28.) 
National Conference on Marketing and Farm Credits. PrO' 

ceedings, Chicago, Apr, 8-10, 1913; pub. by cooperating 

farm papers. 
National Conservation Commission. Report, Feb, 1909. 3 v. 

Govt, print, off., 1909. (U. S. Congress, 60th, 2d ses. Sen. 

Doc. 676.) 
National Education Association. Committee on Economy of 

Time in Education. Report. Govt, print, off., 1913. (U. 

S. Bur. of Educ. Bui., 1913, No. 38, wh. No. 548.) 
' Department of Superintendence. Vocational Educa- 
tion. In Proceedings, Cincinnati, Feb., 1915. Pp. 44-87. 

Contents : 

State Program for Industrial and Social Efficiency, by 

A. D. Dean. 
Evolution of the Training of the Worker in Industry, 
by C. A. Prosser. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 385 

Continuation School Work in Wisconsin, by R. L. 

Cooley. 
All-Day Trades School, by E. C Warriner. 
Field for the Corporation School and Its Relation to 

the Public School, by W. L. Chandler. 
National Aid for Vocational Education, by John A. 

Lapp. 
Problems of Vocational Guidance, by F. E. Spaulding. 
National Society for the Promotion o£ Industrial Education. 
Bulletins. 1907 to date. 

No. 1. Proceedings of the Organisation Meetings. 
No. 2. A Selected Bibliography of Industrial Educa- 

tion. 
No. 3. A Symposium on Industrial Education, 
No. 4. Industrial Education for Women. 
Nos. 5 and 6. Proceedings of First Annual Meeting, 

Chicago. 
No. 7. General Information Regarding the National 
Society for the Promotion of Industrial EdU' 
cation. 
No. 8. Education of Workers in the Shoe Industryj by 

A. D. Dean. 
No. 9. Proceedings of the Second Annual Meeting, 

Atlanta. 
No. 10. Proceedings of the Third Annual Meeting, Mil- 

waukee. 
No. 11. A Descriptive List of Trade and Industrial 

Schools in the United States. 
No. 12. Legislation Upon Industrial Education in the 

United States. 
No. 13. Proceedings of the Fourth Annual Meeting, 
Boston. 

Pt. 1. Trade Education for Girls. 

Pt. 2. Apprenticeship and Corporation 

Schools. 
Pt. 3. Part-Time and Evening Schools. 
Pt.4. The Social Significance of Industrial 
Education, 



386 . BIBLIOGRAPHY 

No. 14. The Trade Continuation Schools of Munich. 
A lecture by G. M. A. Kerschensteiner, Director 
of Education, Munich, Bavaria, and the trans- 
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No. 15. Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Meeting, Cin- 
cinnati. 
No. 16. Proceedings of the Sixth Annual Meeting, 

Philadelphia. 
No. 17. Short Unit Course for Evening Trade Exten- 
sion and Part-Time Trade Extension Schools. 
No. 18. Proceedings of Seventh Annual Meeting, Grand 

Rapids, 1913. 
No. 19. The Selection and Training of Teachers. 
No. 20. Proceedings of the Eighth Annual Meeting, 
Richmond, 1914. 
Nearing, Scott. Reducing the Cost of Living. Jacobs, 1914. 
Oppenheimer, Franz. The State; its history and development 
viewed sociologically: auth. tr. by J. M. Gitterman. Bobbs, 
1914. 
O'Shea, Michael .Vincent. Education as Adjustment. Long- 
mans, 1903. 
Parsons, Frank. Choosing a Vocation. Houghton, 1909. 
Perkins, A. F. Vocations for the Trained Woman. Long- 
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Person, Harlow Stafford. Industrial Education; a system of 
training for men entering upon trade and commerce. 
Houghton, 1907. (Hart, Schaffner & Marx prize essays.) 
Plunkett, Sir Horace. Rural Life Problem of the United 

States; notes of an Irish observer. Macmillan, 1913. 
Prosser, Charles A. Training of the Factory Worker 
Through Industrial Education; address before the Na- 
tional Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education, 
Cincinnati, Nov. 2-4, 1911. 
Puffer, J. Adams. Vocational Guidance; the teacher as a 

counselor. Rand, 1913. 
Roman, Frederick W. Industrial and Commercial Schools 
of the United States and Germany; a comparative study. 
Putnam, 1915. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 387 

Sadler, M. E. Continuation Schools in England and Else- 
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1908. (Pub. of the Univ. of Manchester, Educ. ser. No. 1.) 

Smith, WilHam Hawley. All the Children of All the People ; 
a study of the attempt to educate everybody. Macmillan, 
1912. 

Snedden, David S. Problems of Educational Readjustment, 
Houghton, 1913. 

Problems of Vocational Education. Houghton, 1910. 

(Riverside educational monographs.) 

Special Libraries (pub. monthly except. July and August). 
V. 1, Jan., 1910 to date. 

(Contains various articles on relation of libraries to in- 
dustries and business.) 

Spencer, Herbert. Education; Intellectual, Moral and Phys- 
ical. (Various editions.) % 

Strong, Josiah. Safety and Security for American Life and 
Labor. 1906. 

Tolman, W. H., and Kendall, L. B. Safety; methods for pre- 
venting occupational and other accidents and diseases. 
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U. S. Bureau of Education. Comparison of Public Education 
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Apprenticeship System in Its Relation to Industrial 

Education; by C. D. Wright. Govt, print, off., 1908. (Bui. 
1908, No. 6, wh. No. 389.) 

Consular Reports on Industrial Education in Germany. 

Govt, print, off., 1913. (Bui. 1913, No. 54, wh. No. 565.) 
Consular Reports on Continuation Schools in Prussia. 

Govt, print, off., 1913. (Bui. 1913, No. 9, wh. No. 516.) 

Continuation Schools in the United States; by A. J. 

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Education for the Home; by B. R. Andrews. 4 pts. 



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388 BIBLIOGRAPHY 



M 



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Fitchburg Plan of Cooperative Education; by M. R. 



McCann. Govt, print, off., 1913. (Bui. 1913, No. SO, wh. 
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— — Georgia Club at the State Normal School, Athens, 
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German Industrial Education and Its Lessons for the 



United States; by Holmes Beckwith. Govt, print, off., 

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School and the Start in Life; a study of the relation 

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University Extension in the United States; by L. E. 



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Vocational Guidance; papers presented at the organi- 



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U. S. Bureau of Labor. Conditions of Entrance to Principal 

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U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Short-unit Courses for 

Wage Earners and a Factory School Experiment. Govt. 

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U. S. Bureau of Soils. Soil Erosion; by W. J. McGee. 

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U. S. Bureau of the Census. Census of i^oo; Census of JQIO, 

Govt, print, off. 



BIBLIOGRAPHY 389 

U. S. Commission on National Aid to Vocational Education. 
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House Doc. No. 1004.) 

U. S. Commissioner of Education. Report, 1^13. Govt, print, 
off., 1913. 

U. S. Commissioner of Labor. Industrial Education. Govt, 
print, off., 1911. (25th Ann. Rep., 1910.) 

Van Hise, C. R. Conservation of Natural Resources in the 
United States. Macmillan, 1910. 

Ward, Lester F. Dynamic Sociology, Rev. ed. 2 v. Apple- 
ton, 1897. 

Weaver, E. W. Profitable Vocations for Girls. Barnes, 1915. 
(Vocational ser.) 

and Byler, J. F. Profitable Vocations for Boys, yr 

Barnes, 1915. (Vocational ser.) 

Webb, Sidney. Grants in Aid: a criticism and a prof^psal. 
Longmans, 1911. (Studies in economics and political sci- 
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Weed, Clarence M. Farm Friends and Farm Foes; a text- 
book of agricultural science. Heath, 1909. 

Weeks, Ruth Mary. People's School; a study in vocational 
training. Houghton, 1912. (Riverside educational mono- 
graphs.) 

Wisconsin Commission on Industrial and Agricultural Educa- 
tion. Report, 1911. 



ORGANIZATIONS INTERESTED IN 
VOCATIONAL TRAINING 



ORGANIZATIONS INTERESTED IN VOCA- 
TIONAL TRAINING 

American Association for the Advancement of Agricultural 
Teaching. 

American Association for Labor Legislation. 

American Association of Farmers' Institute Workers. 

American Bankers' Association. 

American Education and Cooperative Farmers' Union. 

American Federation of Labor. 

American Home Economics Association. 

American Medical Association. 

American Posture League. • 

Association of American Agricultural Colleges and Experi- 
ment Stations. 

Association of Southern States Rural School Supervisors. 

Banker Farmer. 

Chamber of Commerce of the United States. 

Eastern Art and Manual Training Teachers* Association. 

Eastern Commercial Teachers' Association. 

Farmers' National Congress. 

General Federation of Women's Clubs. 

International Congress of Farm Women. 

International Dry Farming Congress. 

National Association of Corporation Schools. 

National Association of Manufacturers. 

National Child Labor Committee. 

National Commercial Teachers' Federation. 

National Conference on the Education of Dependent, Truant, 
Backward and Delinquent Children. 

National Congress of Mothers and Parent Teachers' Associa- 
tion. 

National Dry Goods Dealers' Association. 

National Education Association. 

393 



394 ORGANIZATIONS 

National Education Association, Department of Superintend- 
ence. 
National Farmers' Grange. 
National Metal Trades Association. 
National Society for Broader Education. 
National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education. 
National Vocational Guidance Association. 
Society for the Promotion of Engineering Education. 
Southern Commercial Congress. 
Southern Education Association. 

Vocational Education Association of the Middle West. 
Western Drawing and Manual Training Association. 
Woman's Educational and Industrial Union (Boston). 






INDEX 



INDEX 



Ability, tested by psychology, 272. 

Abnormal children, 186. 

Accidents of occupations : 9, 46, 62 ; prevention, 79 ; extent of, 
79 ; Germany, 80 ; United States Steel Corporation, 81 ; 
losses from, 165, 176; failure of schools to teach pre- 
vention of, 46. 

Accounting: essential part of agricultural education, 12, 104; 
in business, 129, 135. 

Activities : classification, 7 ; education for all, 27. 

Adams, Charles Francis, 351. 

Adjustment: meaning of, 6; of education to environment, 5, 
9, 19, 367; of individual to environment, 8, 19, 22,^9, 43, 
55, 182; of education to labor, 11, 60-88; of education to 
the home, 13, 143, 163 ; of education to farm work, 13, 
89-115; of education to modern professions, 14; of edu- 
cation to commerce, 14, 116-142; of education to con- 
sumer, 15, 130; of education to wholesome pleasures, 
17; of education to society, 18; education must be pro- 
gressive to accomplish, 19; education must be dynamic 
to accomplish, 19; of education to locality, 20; of pub- 
lic schools to environment of pupils, 28; of agricultural 
education to community. 111 ; of education to period of 
time, 20 ; of home education to locality, 148 ; of libraries 
to locality, 254. 

Adult workers : part-time education, 226 ; library as aid to, 
27, 28, 211, 250, 255, 261, Z72)] correspondence and ex- 
tension courses, 231-248. 

Advertising, 135. 

Agricultural colleges : failure to meet needs of farmers, ^3, 
49, 345, 346; failures of, 49, 98, 99, 345, 346; entrance 
requirements, 49 ; short courses, 101 ; extension courses, 
233 ; national aid, 312 ; Morrill Act of 1862, 312 ; Smith- 
Lever Act of 1914, 313 ; correspondence courses, 244. 

Agricultural cooperation, 95. 

Agricultural credit, 102. 

Agricultural education: 89-115; need of reconstruction, 12; 
in primitive society, 12 ; for youth, 101 ; established in 
rural districts, 99 ; difficulties of reaching mature farm- 
ers, 101; should be scientific and practical, 102; con- 

397 



3% INDEX 

Agricultural education — Continued. 

tinuous process, 106; flexible to suit community, 111; 
text-books, HI; women, 144; part-time, 223, 224; cor- 
respondence schools, 244-246; national welfare depend- 
ent on, 318; and culture, 335; teachers, 285-308. i 

Agricultural experiment stations, 52. j 

Agricultural extension courses: 98, 101, 211, 231-248; largely 
for adults, 232 ; Morrill Act of 1862, 312 ; Smith-Lever* 
Act of 1914, 313; place in ideal system of education,) 
373; universities maintaining, 233, 235. 

Agricultural libraries : 259 ; county, 259. 

Agricultural science, not in possession of farmers, SO. 

Agriculture: 89-115; county agents, SO; basic industry of! 
United States, 318; need of specialization and training,] 
114; number engaged in, 58; monotony of, 223. 

Alcohol: failure of schools to teach effects of, 46; waste] 
from use of, 166. 

Aldrich, Senator, 361. 

Alexander Hamilton Institute, New York, 237. 

Almshouses, inmates' lack of trade, 352, 356. 

Ambition: an impetus to seeking knowledge, 43; lack of, in 
school and college students, 44. 

American Association for Labor Legislation, 177. 

American Federation of Labor : 210, 346 ; Special Committee 
on Industrial Education, 69. 

American Posture League, 180. 

American School of Correspondence, Chicago, 237. 

American School of Dressmaking, Kansas City, 237. 

American School of Home Economics, Chicago, 237. 

Animal diseases : 47 ; losses from, 165, 173. 

Apprenticeship : in the home, 10 ; in primitive society, 10, 47, 
68, 198, 201; in medicine, 198; in law, 199; lack of, in 
modern industry, 11, 17; inadequate for needs, 67; atti- 
tude of labor unions, 69; age of admission, 195, 205; 
vocational schools to supply deficiencies, 209 ; compared 
with part-time education, 220-222. 

Architecture, houses, 154. 

Aristocracy of education, 4, 31, 56. 

Aristotle, 266, 267. 

Arithmetic: elementary schools, 29, 187, 188; examples of 
obsolete problems in, 18. 

Art: in the home, 13, 155; leisure to enjoy, 17; founded on 
utility, 334; culture more than appreciation of, 339; 
selection of pictures, 155. 

Artificiality, in home training, 163. 

Associations : business men's correspondence courses, 242 ; 
private vocational guidance dependent on, for data, 282; 
interested in vocational education, 393. 



INDEX 399 

Attendance In schools, 39, 217. 

Automatic industry, 78, 206, 207, 215. 

Average : age of leaving school, 40, 42, 54, 183, 185, 195, 217 ; 
attendance in schools, 39; earning capacity, 79; term of 
employment for girls, 11 ', length of life, 179; man, in- 
telligent, 26; yield of farm crops, 50; service of teach- 
ers, 303. 

Ayres, Leonard P., 40, 273, 278, 283. 

Babies: care of, 149, 159; mortality, 159, 176. 

Backward children, 374. 

Banking: education for, 120, 122, 136; foreign, 136; United 
States, 136; country, 103; agricultural credit, 102; 
panics, 128. 

Bibliography, 381. 

Biography: as a vocational study, 83, 187; in libraries, 254. 

Blind, vocational training, 202. 

Blind alley jobs, 34, 11, 85, 195, 207, 214, 217, 225, 276, 283, 340, 
371, Zll. 

Blue print reading, Zl. % 

Bookkeeping: an essential part of agricultural education, 12, 
104 ; education for, 203. 

Books: supplementary to education, 27, 28, 211, 249-261, Z1Z\ 
for workers, 250, 251 ; for professions, 251 ; for business, 
251. 

Boston, trade schools, 71. 

Brandeis, Louis, D., 129. 

Brooks, John Graham, 95. 

Brown, H. B., 301. 

Budget, for home expenditures, 158. 

Building : houses, 153 ; materials, 154. 

Business: 16-142; principles of, not applied to practise, 24; 
number engaged in, 58, 136; details, 117; and prosperity, 
118; science of, 119; science of, evolved by business, not 
by schools, 121 ; general principles of, 121 ; occupations 
embraced in, 120; elements of, essential to all occupa- 
tions, 120, 122; failures, 128; coordination of processes, 
128; failure of schools to train for, 129, 345, 346; ef- 
ficiency, 131, 137; attractive to college graduates, 140; 
books for, 251 ; chambers of commerce, 243 ; possibilities 
of arithmetical problems in, 19 ; knowledge of processes 
of, unavailable, 52. 

Business education: 13, 116-142; begins In elementary schools, 
120 ; In Germany, 138, 243 ; United States, 139 ; college 
departments for, 139 ; women, 144 ; correspondence 
schools, 237, 242 ; chambers of commerce, 243 ; private 
school's, 203, 369; Alexander Hamilton Institute, 237; 
teachers, 298, 299. 



400 INDEX 

Butler, Nicholas Murray, 56, 268, 280. 
Buying, for the home, 149, 157, 158. 

California, cooperative markets, 95. 

Candy, waste from use of, 166. 

Canning fruits, 150. 

Capital and labor, 72. 

Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 199. 

Carpentry correspondence courses : in The Carpenter, 238 ; 
University of Kansas, 241. 

Carpets, selection, 156. 

Chambers of commerce, commercial education, 243. 

Cheney, Howell, 83, 84. 

Chesterfield, Lord, 265. 

Chewing gum, waste from use of, 166. 

Chicago public library, industrial branches, 256. 

Child labor: losses from, 176; extent of, 282. 

Child psychology, 160. 

Childhood: waste of, 175; conservation of, 216; duty of state 
to protect, 217. 

Children: care of, 149, 159; attitude toward school, 183; ab- 
normal, in schools, 186; laggards, 53, 183, 186; back- 
ward, 2)7 Z; exceptional, 374; juvenile delinquents, 352. 

Cities and towns: adjustment of education to, 20; population, 
90; farm-to-city movement, 50, 90, 96, 112; adjustment 
of domestic science to, 148; adjustment of libraries to, 
254; duties of, under system of national aid to voca- 
tional education, 325 ; obligations to vocational educa- 
tion, 320, 321 ; unequal financial resources of, 322, 323. 

Citizens, education for, 25. 

Citizenship : meaning of, 16 ; education for, 20, 47, 266, 362, 
363 ; and vocational education, 344-365 ; failure of 
schools to teach, 354, 355 ; program for education for, 
357; and efficiency, 358; education of experts for public 
service, 362, 363 ; education for, in prevocational 
schools, 2)62), 364; education for, in rural schools, 363. 

Civics, failure of, in schools, 362. 

Classical education : failure, 274, 347, 353 ; wealth the comple- 
ment of, 349; fails to follow industrial development, 
356. 

Clothing : selection and making, 149, 152, 153 ; waste in, 166. 

Clubs, women's, 161. 

Coal, waste in production, 167. 

Coke, waste in manufacture, 168. 

Collective bargaining, 131. 

College graduates : business attractive to, 140 ; failures of, 
350, 351 ; part-time education for, 226. 

Colleges : state provision for, prior to common schools, 30 ; 
all grades of, to be provided at public expense, ZZ; 



INDEX 401 

Colleges — Continued. 

domination of high schools by, 54 ; business training de- 
partments, 139; place in ideal system of education, 372. 

Commencement day, not the end of education, 23. 

Commerce: 13, 116-142; possibilities of arithmetical problems 
in, 19; knowledge of processes of, unavailable, 52; num- 
ber engaged in, 58, 126; details, 117; and prosperity, 118; 
science of, 119; science of, evolved by business, not by 
schools, 121; general principles, 121; books for, 251; 
occupations embraced in, 120, elements of, essential to 
all occupations, 120, 122; coordination of processes, 
128; failures, 128; failure of schools to train for, 129, 
345, 346 ; efficiency, 131, 137 ; attractive to college gradu- 
ates, 140 ; chambers of, 243, 

Commercial education: 13, 116-142; begins in elementary 
schools, 120; in Germany, 138, 243; United States, 139; 
college departments for, 139; women, 144; correspond- 
ence schools, 237, 242 ; chambers of commerce, 243 ; 
private schools, 203, 369; Alexander Hamilton Institute, 
237; teachers, 298, 299. 

Commercial experiment stations, need of, 52. % 

Commercial fertilizers, 109, 171. 

Commercial high schools : 139 ; teachers, 298, 299. 

Commission merchants, 94, 157, 237. 

Communities: adjustment of education to, 20; adjustment of 
agricultural education to, 111; adjustment of domestic 
science to, 148; adjustment of libraries to, 254; duties 
of, under system of national aid to vocational educa- 
tion, 325 ; obligations to vocational education, 320, 321 ; 
unequal financial resources of, 322, 323. 

Composition, in elementary schools, 29, 187, 188. 

Compulsory education: 56, 274; failure of, to accomplish uni- 
versal education, 31; justification of, 183; in practical 
arts in elementary schools, 191; part-time education, 
225. 

Conservation: 64, 137, 164-181; money spent on, 80; of life, 
175; of life in Germany, 80; on the farm, 109; and vo- 
cational education, 164-181, 201 ; waste of resources, 
164-181; of youth, 216, 217; of health, 179; and voca- 
tional guidance, 273, 284 ; part-time training for, 230. 

Consuls, United States, training, 125. 

Consumers, education of, 15, 20, 130. 

Consumption : and production, 15 ; waste In, 164-181. 

Continuation schools : 220, 279 ; teachers, 288 ; in ideal system 
of education, 373-277. 

Continuity of education: 23, 55; schools to encourage, 28; 
agricultural, 106. 

Cooking, 148. 



402 INDEX 

Cooperation : 96 ; between employer and employees, 62, 72, 75 ; 
between industries and school, 87 ; markets, 95 ; agricul- 
tural, 95; local, state and national, in vocational educa- 
tion, 315, 318, 319, 324-326; in ideal system of education, 
373, 375, 376. 

Coordination: between shop and school, 87; between proc- 
esses of business, 128; with manufacturing, in distribu- 
tion of goods, 128. 

Corn specials, 244. 

Cornell, Ezra, 21. 

Corporation correspondence schools, 237, 

Corporation trade schools, 68. 

Correlation: between practical arts and formal studies, 192; 
between part-time schools and industries, 225. 

Correspondence schools : ^ 28, 43, 55, 71, 225, 231-248 ; largely 
for adults, 232; private, weakness and limitations, 233, 
235 ; universities maintaining, 233, 235 ; ideal system of, 
235 ; types of, 236 ; corporation schools, 237 ; interest of 
employees in, 238; project vs. course system in, 238; 
limitless possibilities of, 239; as adjunct to schools, 240, 
241 ; associations of business men to provide, 242 ; in 
commercial education, 237, 242 ; in domestic science, 237, 
243 ; in agricultural education, 244, 245 ; danger of dupli- 
cating work of schools, 246; teachers, 288; place in 
ideal system of education, 373; Alexander Hamilton 
Institute, New York, 237; American School of Corre- 
spondence, 237; American School of Home Economics, 
Chicago, 237; American School of Dressmaking, Kan- 
sas City, 237; International Correspondence School, 
Scranton, Pa., 236; School of Railway Signaling, Utica, 
N. Y., 238 ; Union Pacific Railroad Educational Bureau, 
237 ; Sheldon School of Correspondence, 237. 

Cost accounting : on the farm, 12 ; in business, 129, 135. 

Cost of living, education for, 13. 

Cotton, selection, 152. 

Country Life Commission, 103. 

Country life movement, 96, 112. 

County agents of agriculture, SO. 

Course system, vs. project system of instruction, 238. 

Crime, industrial education a preventive, 359, 360. 

Crops : ^ production. United States and foreign, 91 ; diversifica- 
tion and rotation, 105, 171 ; pests, 109 ; losses from pests, 
165, 172; not equal to soil possibilities, 166, 167; weeds, 
109, 165, 173 ; average yield, 50. 

Culture: and vocational education, 327-343; and work, 327- 
343 ; definition, 328, 336 ; medieval conception of, 329 ; of 
ordinary work, 333, 339; and agriculture, 335; in Ger- 
many, 336; economic significance, 337; erroneous idea 



INDEX 403 

Culture — Continued. 

of, 338; more than appreciation of art, 339; for work- 
ing as well as leisure hours, 340. 

Curriculum ; in elementary schools, 27 ; rigidity, 53, 347. 

Dairying, 110. 

Davenport, Eugene, 333, 340. 

Deaf and dumb, vocational training, 202. 

Dean, Arthur D., 186, 357. 

Defectives, vocational training, 202. 

Deficiencies of training, education to supply, 25. 

Delinquents : vocational training, 202 ; lack of trade, 352, 356 ; 
juvenile, 352. 

Democracy : educational ideals of, 21 ; opportunity to all, 
foundation of, 21, 34, 367; failure of, to provide uni- 
versal education, 30; problems of universal education 
in, 33; failure of schools to meet needs of, 39; tenantry 
contrary to ideals of, 100. 

Demonstration farms, 244. 

Department stores: cheap clerks, 133: industrial libraries, 
255, 256. % 

Dependents : vocational training, 202 ; lack of trade, 352, 356. 

Dewey, John, 3, 4, 17, 20, 329, 330, 332, 334, 343. 

Dietetics, 13, 47, 150. 

Diseases, losses from, preventable, 165. 

Diseases of animals : 47 ; losses from, 165, 173. 

Diseases of occupations: 9, 46; losses from, 165, 176; national 
conference on, 177; causes of, 178; failure of schools to 
teach prevention of, 46. 

Diseases of plants : 47, 109 ; losses from, 165, 172, 

Distribution: of farm products, 93; of goods, 117; of goods, 
coordination with manufacturing, 128; among occupa- 
tions, 265 ; among occupations and vocational guidance, 
264; of labor, 211, 268. 

Diversified farming, 105, 171. 

Divorce, rates, 146. 

Dixie highway, 354. 

Domestic science : 13, 143-163 ; elementary courses, 190 ; com- 
pulsory, 191 ; part-time, 223, 226, 229 ; failure of schools 
in, 146, 345, 346; teachers, 294; American School of 
Dressmaking, 237; American School of Home Eco- 
nomics, 237; correspondence schools, 237, 243; reason 
for introducing into schools, 329, 331; adjustment of, 
to locality, 148 ; artificiality in, 163. 

Domestic trade, 126. 

Drainage, losses from lack of, 174. 

Draper, Andrew S., 57, 365. 

Draperies, selection, 155. 

Dressmaking; 148, 152, 153; American School of, 237. 



404 INDEX 

Drudgery, of home labor, 161. 

Dynamic quality, essential to education as adjusting force, 19. 

Earning a livelihood : 10 ; education for, 20, 202 ; failure of 
schools to train for, 61; elementary vocational courses 
_ not to fit for, 191. 

Earning capacity, of average worker, 79. 

Economic: basis for industrial education, 61; changes, 10; 
losses, 164-181 ; agricultural losses, 174 ; needs of indus- 
try, 62; value of culture, 337; waste, 164-181. 

Education: purpose of, 1-20; philosophy, 3; versus practise, 
23; correlation of, with life, 28; purpose of, misunder- 
stood, 31 ; rigidity, 53, 347 ; continuous through life, 23, 
55 ; vocational school the core of, 211 ; and the state, 
310, 311; and industrial revolution, 329; indictment of, 
345, 346 ; ideal system of, outlined, 28, 366-376. See also 
under Schools. 

Efficiency: education for, 11; aided by libraries, 258; and citi- 
zenship, 358 ; in industry, a national need, 316 ; in indus- 
try, Germany, 26, 62, 65, 66, 130, 167, 243, 317, 336; of 
business, 131, 137; of the individual, 66. 

Eggleston, J. D., 85. 

Election frauds, 355. 

Elementary schools : 182-196 ; curriculum, 27 ; in ideal system 
of education, 29, 372-374; per cent, of pupils graduating 
from, 41 ; dominated by high schools, 54 ; failure of, 57 ; 
business education should begin in, 120; agricultural 
courses in, 190; domestic science courses in, 190; man- 
ual training courses, 190 ; text-books for, 193 ; length of 
course, 193 ; plan to transfer last two years of, to high 
schools, 194. 

Elimination of pupils from school: 40, 54, 183, 195, 217, 274, 
277; causes, 42, 185; statistics of pupils leaving before 
graduation, 224. 

Eliot, Charles W., 43. 

Employer : and employee, 62, 75, 82 ; obligation of, to worker, 
215. 

Employment certificates : Indiana law, 277 ; number taken out 
by untrained workers, 277. 

Employment offices, one phase of vocational guidance, 269. 

Energy, waste of, 180. 

England, grants in aid, 314, 315. 

Environment : adjustment of individual to, 8, 19, 22, 39, 43, 55 ; 
scheme of education to adjust individual to, 182; vari- 
ability of, 22, 367; adjustment of education to, 5, 9, 19, 

Erosion of soil, waste from, 171. 
European trade, 124. 



INDEX 405 

European war, and vocational education, 62, 123, 325. 
Evening schools: 28, 43, 211, 225, 227, 228; failure of, 218; 

teachers, 288; place in ideal system of education, 2)7Z. 
Exceptional children, 374. 
Experiment stations: agricultural, 52; commercial, need of, 

52; industrial, need of, 52. 
Experimental psychology : 160, 271, 272, 284 ; ability tested by, 

272. 
Experts in government: training, 362; training, should begin 

in schools, 362, ?)6Z. 
Exploitation, age of, 164. 
Extension courses: 98, 101, 211, 231-248; largely for adults, 

232 ; universities maintaining, 233, 235 ; teachers, 288 ; in 

ideal system of education, Z7Z. 

Fabrics, selection, 149, 152, 165. 

Factories: take place of small shops, 10; products of Amer- 
ican, inferior, 61 ; unsanitary conditions, 179 ; accidents, 
9, 46, 62, 79, 80, 81, 165, 176; diseases, 9, 46, 165, 176- 
178; number of workers in, from fourteen to siicteen, 
216; industrial libraries, 255, 256; inspection bureaus, 
283 ; humidity in, 178 ; poisons, 177, 178. 

Failures, commercial, 128. 

Family income, spent by wife, 158. 

Farm: property, value, 92; laborers, 100; accounts, 12, 104; 
machinery and tools, neglect, 109, 165; system on, 113; 
as a business proposition, 92. 

Farm crops : average yield, 50 ; production, 91 ; rotation and 
diversification, 105, 171; pests, 109; losses from pests, 
165, 172 ; weeds, 109, 165, 173 ; unequal to soil possibili- 
ties, 166, 167. 

Farm education: 89-115; correspondence schools, 244-246. 

Farm products : markets for, 93 ; monopolies in, 94. 

Farm-to-city movement, 50, 90, 96, 112. 

Farmers: failure of schools to meet needs of, 3, 49, 345, 346; 
education of, 12, 97, 89-115, 244-246; number of, 58; 
mature, unresponsive to new ideas, 101, 245 ; interest in 
roads, 108. 

Farmers' bulletins. United States Department of Agriculture, 
245. 

Farmers' institutes, 244. 

Fashions, in dress, 153. 

Fatigue, industrial, 78, 82. 

Federal aid to schools : 312 ; grants in aid, England, 314, 315. 

Federal aid to vocational education: 309-326; training of 
teachers, 296, 324; agricultural colleges, 312; Morrill 
Act of 1862, 312 ; Smith-Lever Act of 1914, 313 ; local, 
state and national cooperation, 315, 325, 326; migration. 



406 



INDEX 



Federal aid to vocational education — Continued, 

immigration and inequality in resources of state and 
local units, arguments for, 321-323 ; bill before Congress 
outlined, 324. 

Federal Commission on Vocational Education, 48, 162, 295, 
322. 

Feeble-minded, vocational training, 202. 

Fertilizers, 109, 171. 

Fire, losses from, 165. 

First aid, to sick and injured, 160. 

Fisher, Irving, 176. 

Flower gardens, 157. 

Food: shortage of supply, 89; values, 9, 13, 47, 150, 165; selec- 
tion, 149; losses from waste in, 166. 

Foreign trade : 123 ; education for, 125. 

Foremen, education of, 131. 

Forests: waste of, 169; fires, 171. 

Fruits : growing, 107 ; canning and preserving, 150. 

Furnishings : for the home, 154 ; waste in, 165, 166. 

Furniture: cheap, 130; selection, 155; waste from, 170; books 
on, 254. 

Gardens: 149, 156; flower, 157; truck, 107. 

Georgia Club, rural survey, 304. 

Germany: development of industrial efficiency, 26, 62, 65, 66, 
130, 167, 243, 317, 336; educational system of, 26, 62, 
130; Munich trade schools, 36; skilled labor of, 65, 167; 
industrial laboratories, 66; occupational accidents, 80; 
South American trade, 124; commercial education, 138, 
243; culture, 336; chambers of commerce, 243; teachers 
for vocational schools, 288. 

Girls and women: average term of emplo3mient, 177; trades 
offering opportunities for, 84; business education for, 
144; agricultural education for, 144; industrial educa- 
tion for, 144; domestic science for, 143-163; department 
stores, cheap clerks, 133 ; drudgery of home labor, 161 ; 
women's clubs, 161 ; as judges of values, 145 ; need of 
trained, 145 ; labor of, modified in modern society, 145 ; 
education for motherhood, 159; spenders of family in- 
come, 158. 

Government: perversion for private interests, 349; inefficien- 
cies of, 354 ; waste in, 165, 356, 361 ; education for, 360- 
362; experts in, 362. 

Graduates of colleges: business attractive to, 140; failures of, 
350, 351 ; part-time education for, 226. 

Graduation : bridge between school and work, 23 ; per cent, 
reaching, in high schools, 40; per cent, reaching, in ele- 
mentary schools, 41. 

Grants in aid, England, 314, 315, 



INDEX 407 

Harvard University, extension courses, 233, 

Health, conservation of, 179. 

Henderson, Charles R., 359. 

Heroes, of industry, 83, 187. 

Herrick, Cheesman A., 121, 125. 

High schools : all grades of, to be provided at public expense, 
33 ; per cent, of pupils reaching and graduating from, 
40, domination of, by colleges, 54; domination of ele- 
mentary schools by, 54 ; commercial, 139 ; last two years 
of elementary schools to be transferred to, 194; part- 
time education for graduates, 226. 

Hoffman, Frederick L., 79, 178. 

Home : training for, inefficient, 17 ; as a business problem, 
145 ; failure of schools to educate for, 146. 

Home economics : not applied to practise, 24 ; education in, 
143-163. 

Home education : 13, 143-163 ; elementary courses, 190 ; com- 
pulsory, 191 ; part-time, 223, 226, 229 ; failure of schools 
in, 146, 345, 346; teachers, 294 ; adjustment of, to locality, 
148 ; artificiality in, 163 ; reason for introducing^ into 
schools, 329, 331 ; American School of Dressmaking, 
237; American School of Home Economics, 237; corre- 
spondence schools, 237, 243. 

Home-makers : education for, 25, 77, 143-163 ; number of, 58. 

Homes: building of, 153; building materials, 154; furnish- 
ings, 154; waste in furnishings, 165, 166. 

Horticultural pests : 109 ; losses from, 165, 172. 

Hours of labor, 78. 

Houses : building of, 153 ; building ma! rials, 154 ; furnish- 
ings, 154; waste in furnishings, 165, 166; tenements, 
355. 

Human life : waste in, 175 ; average, 179. 

Humidity, in factories, 178. 

Hygiene, inefficient teaching of, in schools, 46. 

Ideal system of education: outlined, 28, 366-376; adapted to 
needs of all, 367; no limits to, 368; entirely at public 
expense, 370 ; industrial surveys in, 371 ; research work 
in, 372. 

Immigration, an argument for national aid to vocational edu- 
cation, 322. 

Income of family, spent largely by wife, 158. 

Indiana: Commission on Industrial and Agricultural Educa- 
tion, 251 ; vocational educational law, 277, 278. 

Indianapolis (Ind.), Department of Attendance, report, 277. 

Individuals: adjustment of, to environment, 8, 19, 22, 39, 43, 
55; education to adjust, to environment, 182; variability 
of, 22, 67, 367 ; efficiency of, 66 ; natural bent toward a 
vocation, 265, 269, 280; ability tested by psychological 



408 INDEX 

Individuals — Continued. 

experiments, 272; increasing responsibility of schools 
for, 371, 372. 

Industrial accidents: 9, 46, 62; prevention, 79; extent of, 79; 
Germany, 80 ; United States Steel Corporation, 81 ; 
losses from, 165, 176; failure of schools to teach pre- 
vention of, 46. 

Industrial diseases : 9, 46 ; losses from, 165, 176 ; national con- 
ference on, 177; causes, 178; failure of schools to teach 
prevention of, 46. 

Industrial education : 60-88 ; causes for, 61 ; economic basis 
of, 61 ; labor unions' attitude toward, 69 ; to promote 
skilled labor, 82 ; trades offering opportunities for, 83 ; 
women, 144 ; a preventive of crime, 359, 360 ; in prisons 
and reformatories, 359. 

Industrial* efficiency : a national need, 316 ; in Germany, 26, 62, 
65, 66, 103, 167, 243, 317, 336. 

Industrial experiment stations, need of, 52. 

Industrial fatigue, 78, 82. 

Industrial laboratories : 66, 67 ; Germany, 66 ; agricultural, 
244; place in ideal system of education, 372. 

Industrial libraries, 255, 256. 

Industrial poisons : 177 ; causes, 178. 

Industrial processes : knowledge of, unavailable, 52 ; descrip- 
tions of, in libraries, 254. 

Industrial relations, 62, 72, 317, 348. 

Industrial schools : types of, 71 ; for children from fourteen 
to sixteen, 196, 205 ; for defectives, delinquents and de- 
pendents, 202 ; for girls, teachers in, 298 ; teachers, 285- 
308; place in ideal system of education, 373. 

Industrial science, not applied to practise, 24. 

Industrial surveys : 35, 63, 85, 86 ; for vocational guidance, 
269, 283 ; place in ideal system of education, 371. 

Industrial unrest: 67, 72, 348; and vocational education, 317, 
318.^ . 

Industrializing, of regular school work, 38. 

Industries: 60-88; number employed in, 58; number from 
fourteen to sixteen employed in, 216; promotion in, 76, 
77; unsanitary conditions, 178; failure of schools to 
train for, 345, 346. 

Industry: new forms of, 11; effect of new forms of, on so- 
ciety, 329; failure of, to foresee educational needs, 
11; knowledge of processes of, unavailable, 52; eco- 
nomic needs of, 62; failure of schools to understand, 
82 ; history of, not taught in schools, 82 ; does not supply 
education for those at work, 215 ; obligation of, to 
workers, 215 ; correlation with part-time education, 225. 

Infants: care, 149, 159; mortality, 159, 176. 



INDEX 409 

Initiative : industrial education to develop, 63, 81 ; lacking in 

business, 129. 
Insect pests: 109; losses from, 165, 172. 
International Correspondence School, Scranton, Pa., 236. 
International Typographical Union : 71 ; course of instruction, 

238. 
Interstate Commerce Commission, 132. 
Intoxicating liquors : inefficient teaching of effects of, in 

schools, 46; waste from use of, 166. 
Inventions: American, 64; effect of, on society, 329; not 

owed to schools and colleges, 353. 

Jails, inmates' lack of trade, 352. 
Jefferson, Thomas, 265. 
Jewelry, books on, 254. 

Joint vocational schools, maintained by neighboring communi- 
ties, 38. 
Juvenile delinquents, 352, 356. 

Kerschensteiner, Dr., 328. 

Knowledge : not applied to practise, 23 ; must be practical, 43. 

Labor, history of, not taught in schools, 82. 

Labor-saving devices, in the home, 154. 

Labor unions : attitude on apprenticeship, 69 ; attitude on in- 
dustrial education, 70; spread of, 72; organs of, in 
libraries, 254; American Federation of Labor, 210, 346; 
International Typographical Union, 71, 238; The Car- 
penter, 238. 

Laboratories for research : industrial, 66, 67 ; in Germany, 66 ; 
agricultural, 244; place in ideal system of education, 
372. ^ 

Laggards, in schools not always failures, 53, 183, 186. 

Land : increase in cost of, 92 ; increase in tenantry of, 50, 100. 

Leaving school : 40, 54, 183, 195, 217, 274, 277 ; causes, 42, 185 ; 
statistics of pupils leaving before graduation, 224. 

Leavitt, Frank L., 281. 

Legal education : 199 ; apprenticeship for in early times, 199. 

Leisure: education for, 17, 20; wholesome occupation of, 78; 
culture not wholly for, 340. 

Leavitt, Frank M., 281. ^ 

Liberal education : vocational education as a part of, 32 ; 
place of, in ideal system of education, 372. 

Libraries: reading rooms, 29, HI, 225; continuation of edu- 
cation by, 27, 28, 250, 261, 2>7?> ; weakness of, in indus- 
trial material, 252, 253 ; specialization in, to suit locality, 
254 ; useful arts departments of, 255 ; industrial 
branches, 255, 256; Marshall Field Company _ library, 
256; agricultural, 259; vocational guidance aided by, 



410 INDEX 

Libraries — Continued. 

260; books for workers, 251; and efficiency, 258; and 
vocational education, 249-261 ; extent of cooperation of, 
with vocational education, 255. 
Life : waste in, 175 ; average length of, 179. 
Life-career motive: as inspiration to seek knowledge, 42; to 

dominate schools, 279. i 

Lincoln highway, 354. i 

Live stock, raising, 110. * 

Livelihood: education for, 10, 20, 202; failure of schools to 
train for, 61 ; elementary vocational courses not to fit 
for, 191. 
Locality: adjustment of education to, 20; conditions in, to 
decide what vocations to be taught, 37; adjustment of 
agricultural education to. 111 ; adjustment of home edu- 
cation to, 148; adjustment of libraries to, 254; obliga- 
tions of, to vocational education, 320; unequal financial 
resources of, 322, 323 ; duties of, under system of na- 
tional aid to vocational education, 325. 
Losses, economic, 164-181. ^^t 

Lowell (Mass.), trade schools, 71. JPl 

McGee, W. J., 173. ! 

Managers, education of, 131. 

Manual labor, value of, underestimated, 74. 

Manual training: for the farm, 110; in prevocational schools, 
190; reasons for introducing into schools, 329, 331. 

Manufacturing: education for, 120; coordination of, with 
distribution of goods, 128. 

Margolin, Louis, 170. 

Marketing, for the home, 149, 157, 158. 

Markets: 117; for farm products, 93; cooperative, 95. 

Marriages : rates, 146 ; unsuccessful, 146. 

Massachusetts, trade schools, 71. 

Materials: value of, 130; for clothing, 149, 152, 153, 166; for 
furniture, 30, 155, 170; house furnishings, 154, 165, 166; 
draperies, 155. 

Mathematics : a part of agricultural education, 12 ; problems 
in, offered by commerce, 19 ; examples of obsolete prob- 
lems in, 18; in elementary schools, 29, 187, 188. 

Medical education : 198 ; apprenticeship in, in early times, 198 ; 
private medical schools, 369. 

Merchandising, education for, 120, 122. 

Merchant ships, American lack of, 123. 

Middle Ages : vocational education in, 47 ; conception of edu- 
cation in, 329. 

Middlemen, 94, 157, 337. 

Migration of workers : 321, 322 ; argument for national aid to 
vocational education, 321. 



INDEX 411 

Miles, H. E., 166. 

Millinery, 148, 152. 

Minerals : waste in, 165 ; waste in production of coal, 167. 

Mining: promotion in, 11 ; waste in, 165, 167, 169. 

Mobility : of population, 322 ; of workers, 321, 322 ; of work- 
ers, an argument for national aid to vocational educa- 
tion, 321. 

Modern society: increase of vocations in, 10; self-preserva- 
tion in, 10; complexity of, 17; labor of women, modified 
in, 145. 

Monopolies, in farm products, 94. 

Monotony: of employment, 62, 72, 75, 78, 82; of home labor, 
161 ; of agricultural labor, 223. 

Monroe's Encyclopedia of Education, 312. 

Moore, R. A., 172. 

Morrill Act of 1862, 312. 

Motherhood, education for, 13, 20, 159. 

Motive, for seeking knowledge found in life-career, 43, 

Mulhall, M. G., 92. 

Munich, trade schools of, Zd. 

Miinsterberg, Hugo, 271, 272. % 

Music: education for, 149; teaching of, in schools, 162. 

Narcotics, inefficient teaching of effects of, in schools, 46. 

National aid to schools : 312 ; grants in aid, England, 314, 
315. 

National aid to vocational education : 309-326 ; training teach- 
ers, 296, 324; agricultural colleges, 312; Morrill Act of 
1862, 312; Smith-Lever Act of 1914, 313; local, state 
and national cooperation, 315, 325, 326; migration of 
workers an argument for, 321 ; immigration an argu- 
ment for, 322 ; unequal financial resources of states and 
local units an argument for, 322, 323 ; bill before Con- 
gress outlined, 324. 

National Association of Manufacturers, Committee on Indus- 
trial Education, (y7>. 

National cash register, 67. 

National Child Labor Committee, 282. 

National Education Association, Committee on Economy of 
Time in Education, 193. 

National Society for the Promotion of Industrial Education, 
206. 

Natural resources: exhaustibility, 18, 64, 127, 356; conserva- 
tion of, 80, 164-181 ; preventable waste in, 164-181. 

Nearing, Scott, 158. 

Negroes, trade schools for, 71. 

New York (state), trade schools, 71. 

Night schools: 28, 43, 211, 225, 227, 228; failure of, 218; 
teachers, 288; place in ideal sys-tem of education, ZTl. 



412 



INDEX 



Normal schools : Albany, N. Y., 295 ; inadequacy of, to train 
vocational teacliers, 296; Athens, Ga., 304; rural teach- 
ers, 51, 300-306. 

Occupational accidents : 9, 46, 62 ; prevention, 79 ; extent of, 
79 ; Germany, 80 ; United States Steel Corporation, 81 ; 
losses from, 165, 176; failure of schools to teach pre- 
vention of, 46. 

Occupational diseases : 9, 46 ; losses from, 165, 176 ; national 
conference on, 177; causes, 178; failure of schools to 
teach prevention of, 46. 

Occupational poisons : 177 ; causes, 178. 

Occupations: increase of, in modern society, 10; basis of uni- 
versal education, 33 ; study of, 28 ; surveys of, 35, 63, 85, 
86; number of, 85, 273; embraced in business, 120; ele- 
ments of business essential to all, 120, 122 ; overcrowded, 
264, 283 ; distribution among, 265. 

Oppenheimer, Franz, 349. 

Opportunities: for all, the foundation of democracy, 21, 34, 
366; for vocational education, 28, 56. 

Orchard pests : 109 ; losses from, 165, 172. 

Organizations interested in vocational education, 393. 

Organizations of business men : correspondence courses, 242 ; 
chambers of commerce, 243. 

O'Shea, M. V., 8. 

Paint, ingredients, 154, 

Panama Canal, 124. 

Panics, 128. 

Parenthood, education for, 13, 20, 159. 

Parsons, Frank, 269. 

Part-time education: 77, 211, 213-230; schools should supply, 
215 ; obligation of industry to, 215 ; extent of need of, 
216; plan for, 219; continuation schools, 220; similarity 
of apprenticeship to, 220-222 ; only beginnings yet made, 
223, 224, 226 ; in domestic science, 223, 226, 229 ; in indus- 
trial training, 226 ; should be compulsory, 225 ; correla- 
tion with industry, 225 ; for adults, 226 ; seasonal 
courses, 227; courses should be definite, 228; scope, 
229; teachers for, 288; place in ideal system of educa- 
tion, 373, 375-377. 

Pedagogy : based on worn-out philosophy, 31 ; value in voca- 
tional education, 294. 

Penitentiaries: inmates' lack of trade, 352, 356; Industrial 
education in, 359. 

Personal advancement, an inspiration to seek knowledge, 43. 

Pests : crop and orchard, 109 ; losses from, 165, 172. 

Philosophy, of education, 3. 



INDEX 413 

"Phossy jaw," 177. 

Physiology, inefficient teaching of, in schools, 46. 

Pictures, selection, 155. 

Plant diseases : 47 ; losses from, 165, 172. 

Pleasures, leisure for, 17, 20, 78. 

Plumbing, in the home, 154. 

Poisons : industrial, 177 ; causes of, 178. 

Population: mobility of, 90, 322; increase of, 127. 

Poultry, raising, 110, 144. 

Practical arts: for the farm, 110; in prevocational schools, 
190; correlation with formal studies, 192. 

Preserving, fruits, 150. 

Prevocational education, 182-196. 

Prevocational schools : 182-196 ; business education should be- 
gin in, 120; training for citizenship should begin in, 363, 
364; place in ideal system of education, 373, 374. 

Primitive society : 7, 8 ; apprenticeship in, 10, 47 ; agricultural 
education in, 12; vocational education in, 47; labor of 
women in, 145. 

Printing : schools of, 71 ; course in, conducted by Interna- 
tional Typographical Union, 238. % 

Prisons: inmates' lack of trade, 352, 356; industrial educa- 
tion in, 359. 

Private correspondence schools, 237. 

Private medical schools, 369. 

Private trade schools, 68. 

Private vs. public control, of schools, 369. 

Production: and consumption, 15; preventable losses in, 164; 
unequal to possibilities, 166; agricultural, 167. 

Professional education: 199; apprenticeship in early times, 
199; in ideal system of education, 373. 

Professional schools : entrance requirements of, 32 ; higher 
form of vocational schools, 198; extent of, in United 
States, 200. 

Professions: adjustment of education to modern needs of, 15, 
18 ; overcrowded, 30, 264, 283, 350 ; education for those 
already engaged in, 25 ; education for, available to select 
few, 56, 262 ; education for, provided by state, 262 ; 
books for, 251 ; number engaged in, 262, 283. 

Progress of society, 8, 18. 

Progressive quality: essential to education as adjusting force, 
19, 347; essential to universal education, 25. 

Project system, vs. course system of instruction, 238. 

Prolongation of life, 179. 

Promotion : in industries, 76, 77 ; an inspiration for seeking 
knowledge, 43 ; in mining, 77 ; in textile mills, 76. 

Prosperity, and business, 118. 

Prosser, Charles A., 77, 286. 



414 INDEX 

Prostitution, 355. 

Psychology: child, 160; and vocational guidance, 271, 272, 
284 ; testing ability by, 272. 

Public officials, education for, 360-362. 

Public provision : for all grades of schools, 33 ; for the ideal 
system of education, 369. 

Public schools, see under Schools ; Agricultural Education ; 
Commercial Education; Commercial High Schools; 
Compulsory Education ; Continuation Schools ; Cor- 
respondence Schools ; Elementary Schools ; Evening 
Schools; High Schools; Industrial Schools; Part- 
time Education; Prevocational Schools; Rural 
Schools; Teachers; Trade Schools; Vocational 
Schools. 

Public service : as a vocation, 362 ; education for, 362 ; educa- 
tion for, begins in school, 362, 363. 

Purpose of education : 1-20 ; misunderstood, 31. 

Pythagoras, 266. 

Railroads : education for, 120, 122, 133 ; federal regulation of, 

132; reorganization, 132; waste in, 133; correspondence 

courses, 237, 238; School of Railway Signaling, Utica, 

N. Y., 238 ; Union Pacific Railroad Educational Bureau, 

237. 
Rank and file, education for, 33. 
Raw products of United States: 65, 118, 123, 316, 356; losses 

from export of, 166. 
Reading, elementary schools, 29, 187. 
Reading rooms, education continued by, 29, 211, 225, 249, 261, 

373. 
Recreation, for leisure, 78. 
Reformatories: inmates* lack of trade, 352, 356; industrial 

education in, 202, 359. 
Research, scientific: 66; In Germany, 66; agricultural, 244; 

place in Ideal system of education, 372. 
Richmond (Va.) industrial survey, 86. 
Rigidity, of education, 53, 347. 
Roads : farmers* interest in, 108 ; Lincoln and Dixie highways, 

354. 
Rotation, of crops, 105, 171. 
Routine: of business, 117; o£ home labor, 161; of industries, 

78, 82. 
Rugs: selection, 156; beauty of, founded on utility, 334, 335. 
Rural population: 90; farm-to-city movement, 50, 90, 96, 112; 

country life movement, 96, 112. 
Rural schools: weakness of, 50, 97; teachers, 51, 300-306; 

scope of training for citizenship in, 362, 
Rural surveys, 303-305. 



INDEX 415 

Safety devices, 9, 176, 

Safety first campaigns, unconnected with schools, 46. 

Salesmanship: education for, 133; Sheldon School of Corre- 
spondence, 237. 

Salesmen, cheap, 133. 

San Jose scale, 109. 

Sanitation, house, 156. 

School of Railway Signaling, Utica, N. Y., 238. 

Schools : limited to few, 4 ; should keep In touch with youth until 
eighteen, 27; adjustment of, to environment of pupils, 
28; adjustment to locahty, 20, Zl, 111, 148; colleges estab- 
lished before, 30; establishment of, 31; all grades to be 
provided at pubhc expense, 33 ; industrializing of regular 
work of, 38; average daily attendance, 39; laggards in, 
not always failures, 53, 184, 186 ; devoted to preparing for 
higher grades, 53 ; curriculum too rigid, 53, 347 ; coordi- 
nation with shops, 87; cooperation with shops, 87; ab- 
normal children in, 186; formal method of instruction 
in, 192 ; should supply education for those already at 
work, 215; state management of, 310, 311; local devel- 
opment, 311; local self-government, 313; grants ill aid 
to, England, 314, 315 ; culture in, through teaching occu- 
pations, 332 ; scope of training for citizenship in, Z(ii ; 
training for government in, 362, ZGi ; socializing of, 
2)^-?i1(y\ public vs. private control, 369; responsibility 
of, for Individual increasing, 371, 372 ; backward and 
exceptional children in, 374. See also under Agricul- 
tural Education; Commercial Education; Commer- 
cial High Schools ; Compulsory Education ; Con- 
tinuation Schools ; Correspondence Schools ; Ele- 
mentary Schools ; Evening Schools ; High Schools ; 
Industrial Schools ; Part-time Education ; Prevoca- 
TioNAL Schools; Rural Schools; Teachers; Trade 
Schools; Vocational Schools. 
Schools, elimination of pupils: 40, 54, 183,^ 195, 217, 274, 277; 
causes, 42; statistics of pupils leaving before gradua- 
tion, 224. 
Schools, failures: to meet needs of farm life, 3, 49, 345, 346; 
to accomplish universal education, 31 ; to meet needs of 
democracy, 39; to adjust individual to democracy, 55, 
330, 331 ; to teach hygiene, physiology and prevention 
of Industrial accidents efficiently, 46 ; to train for a live- 
lihood, 61 ; to understand industry, 82 ; to teach histoiy 
of industry, 82 ; to evolve science of business, 121 ; to 
train for business, 129, 345, 346 ; to train for home, 146, 
345, 346; to teach music in, 162; to teach thrift, 166; to 
train for vocations, 263, 345, 346 ; to interest pupils, 274, 
329 ; to teach citizenship, 354, 355 ; to teach civics In, 
362; failures summarized, 345, 346. 



416 INDEX 

Schools, ideal system : outlined, 28, Z(^-Z76 ; adapted to needs 
of all, 367; no limits, 368; at public expense, 369; in- 
dustrial surveys in, 371 ; research work in, 372 ; elemen- 
tary schools in, 29, 372-374; correspondence schools in, 
2)7?); evening courses in, 2)72) \ continuation schools in, 
Z72-277 ; part-time education in, 272, 27S-277 ; industrial 
schools in, 272; prevocational schools in, 272, 27 A \ voca- 
tional schools in, 272, 27S ; trade schools in, 272. 

Schools, national aid: 312; grants in aid, England, 314, 315; 
to vocational schools, 309-326. 

Schools, state aid : 312 ; to vocational schools, 319-321. 

Schools, text-books : revision of, necessary for elementary 
schools, 193; agricultural. 111. 

Science: a part of agricultural education, 12; not applied to 
practise, 24; of business, 119; of business, not evolved 
by schools, 121 ; general principles of business, 121. 

Scientific research: institutes for, 66, 67; in Germany, 66; ag- 
ricultural, 244; place in ideal system of education, 372. 

Scientists, produced by agricultural schools, 49, 99. 

Seasonal part-time schools, 227. 

Seeds, selection, 92, 109. 

Self-preservation: in primitive society, 7; in modern society, 
8; education for, 9, 15, 20, 179; failure of schools to 
teach, 46. 

Self-reliance : industrial education to develop, 6Zy 81 ; lacking 
in business, 129. 

Sewing, education in, 148, 152, 153. 

Sheldon School of Correspondence, 237, 

Shops, give way to factories, 10. 

Sick, care of, 160. 

Sickness, losses from, 176. 

Silk, selection, 152. 

Skilled labor: undeveloped in America, 62; in Germany, 65; 
industrial education to promote, 82; value of, 130; 
sources of, 215. 

Skilled trades, schools for, 203. 

Smith-Hughes Bill, 324. 

Smith-Lever Law, 1914, 313. 

Smoke nuisance : 354 ; waste through, 168. 

Smut in oats, losses from, 172. 

Snedden, David, 297, 328. 

Social justice, 356. 

Social unrest : 67^ 72, 348 ; and vocational education, 317, 318. 

Social workers : 72; opportunity for, 7S>. 

Socializing, of the schools, 266-276. 

Society, progress of, 8, 18. 

Soda-water, waste from use of, 166. 



INDEX 417 

Soil: exhaustibility of, 50, 164; chemistry of, 109; crops not 
equal to possibilities of, 166, 167; erosion of, 171; waste 
of, 171. 

South American trade: 124; Spanish language, 125. 

Special libraries, for industries, 255, 256. 

Spencer, Herbert, 6, 7, 17, 52, 61, 116, 159, 347. 

"Standpatism," in education, 31. 

State aid : to local schools, 312 ; grants in aid, England, 314, 
315 ; to vocational schools, 319-321. 

State Normal School, Albany, N. Y., teachers for trades, 295. 

State Normal School, Athens, Ga., 304. 

States : and education, 310-312 ; and vocational education, 319- 
321 ; InequaHties in financial resources, 322, 323 ; duties 
of, under system of national aid to vocational educa- 
tion, 324, 325. _ 

Stenography, education for, 203. 

Street railways, inadequacy, 354. 

Strikes : 11, 348 ; strike breakers, 210 ; and vocational educa- 
tion, 317. 

Strong, Josiah, 79. 

Structural iron workers, (3^, t^ 

Styles, in dress, 153. 

Superintendents, education of, 131. 

Surveys : industrial, 35, dZ^ 85, 86 ; for vocational guidance, 
269, 283 ; in ideal system of education, 371. 

Surveys, rural, 303-305. 

Suzzalo, Henry, 372, 

System, on the farm, 113. 

Teachers: not fitted to teach vocational subjects, 297; number 
of, 302; average service, 303; rural, 51, 300-306. 

Teachers of vocational subjects: 212, 285-308; prevocational 
subjects, 287; experience in life, in teaching and in vo- 
cation taught necessary to, 288, 290-294 ; lack of sym- 
pathy with new system, 291 ; agricultural subj ects, 292 ; 
domestic science, 294; trades, 293, 294; national aid for 
training of, 296, 324 ; for girls' trade schools, 298 ; for 
commercial schools, 298, 299; for rural schools, 51, 301- 
306; experimentation in training of, 307. 

Technical colleges, trade schools aspiring to become, 32. 

Technical journals, in libraries, 254. 

Technical skill : undeveloped in American, dZ ; In Germany, 
65; industrial education to promote, 82; value of, 130; 
sources of, 215. 

Teeth, care of children's, 160. 

Temperance instruction, in schools, inefficient, 46. 

Tenantry, increase of, 50, 100. 

Tenements, 355. 



418 



INDEX 



Territorial expansion, 127. 

Tests of ability, by psychology, 272. 

Text-books: revision necessary for elementary schools, 193; 
agricultural, 111. 

Textile mills: promotion in, 76; part-time education in, 77. 

Theory, versus practise, 23. 

Thrift, failure of schools to teach, 166. 

Tobacco, waste from use of, 166. 

Tolman, W. H., 79, 80. 

"Tools of knowledge" : taught in elementary schools, 29, 186, 
189; in ideal system of education, 373, 

Trade : with Europe, 123 ; foreign, 123 ; education for foreign, 
125 ; with South America, 124 ; domestic, 126. 

Trade catalogs, in libraries, 254. 

Trade extension courses, 220. 

Trade journals, in libraries, 254. 

Trade schools: entrance requirements, 32; private, 68; types 
of, 71 ; for negroes, 71 ; corporation, 98 ; for carpentry, 
71, 238, 241 ; for skilled trades, 203 ; rarity of, 203 ; for 
printing, 71, 238; for machine trades, 203; equipment 
of, 208; teachers, 285-308; teachers for girls, 298; place 
in ideal system of education, 373. 

Trade unions: attitude on apprenticeship, 69; attitude on in- 
dustrial education, 70; spread of, 72; organs of, in li- 
braries, 254; American Federation of Labor, 69, 210, 
346; International Typographical Union, 71, 238. 

Trades : 60-88 ; education for workers, already engaged in, 25, 
213-230; limited education for, 30; which, to be taught 
determined by local conditions, 37; number of em- 
ployees in, 58 ; offering opportunities for industrial edu- 
cation, 83; literature of, 254; failure of schools to train 
for, 345, 346. 

Transportation: education for, 120, 122, 133; federal regula- 
tion of, 132 ; reorganization, 132 ; waste in, 133 ; corre- 
spondence courses, 237, 238; School of Railway Signal- 
ing, Utica, N. Y., 238; Union Pacific Railroad Educa- 
tional Bureau, 237 ; by water, 122. 

Truck gardening, 107, 149, 156. 

Unemployment: 73; employment offices, one phase of voca- 
tional guidance, 269. 

Union Pacific Railroad Educational Bureau of Information, 
237. 

United States Bureau of Labor, 280, 282. 

United States Bureau of the Census, reports, 85, 273, 282, 321, 
352. 

United States Commission on Vocational Education, 48, 162, 
295, 322. 

United States Commissioner of Education, 39, 42. 



INDEX 419 

United States Congress, vocational education bill before, out- 
lined, 324. 
United States consuls, training, 125. 
United States Department of Agriculture: 98; bulletins of, 

245. 

United States Department of Commerce, 282. 

United States Steel Corporation, industrial accidents, 81. 

Universal education : 21-38, 58, 341 ; progressive quality essen- 
tial to, 25; plan for, 27; failure of democracy to pro- 
vide, 30; failure of schools to provide, 31; influences 
thwarting development of, 31 ; vocational education a 
step in, 32, 342 ; occupations the basis of, 33 ; problems 
of, in a democracy, 33 ; vocational, 210 ; ideal system of 
education to furnish, at public expense, 366, 376. 

University extension courses : 98, 101, 211, 220, 225, 231-248; 
universities maintaining, 233, 235. 

University of Kansas : extension courses, 233 ; course in car- 
pentry, 240. 

University of Minnesota, extension courses, 233. 

University of Wisconsin, extension courses, 233, 235, 236, 238. 

Urban population: 90; farm-to-city movement, 50, 90, 9IJ, 112. 

Utility, basis of art, 334. 

Values, women as judges of, 145.^ 

Variability, of environment and individuals, 22, 26, 367. 

Vegetable gardens, 107, 149, 156. 

Ventilation, factories, 178. 

Vice, 355. 

Vocation Bureau and Breadwinners' Institute of Boston, 269. 

Vocational education : opportunities for, 28 ; a step in uni- 
versal education, 32 ; a part of a liberal education, 32 ; 
in early times, 47; Federal Commission on, 48, 162, 295, 
322 ; effect of European war on, 62, 123, 325 ; causes for, 
60; and conservation, 164-181, 201; to train for self- 
preservation, 179; prevocational studies in elementary 
school, 182-196; fundamental studies, 186; as a public 
protection, 201 ; value of, to workers, 214 ; for those 
already engaged in work, 213-230; and libraries, 249- 
261 ; inadequate without vocational guidance, 279, 283 ; 
cost of, 309 ; who to bear cost, 320, 321 ; a national need, 
315; social significance of, 317; and strikes, 317; and the 
state, 319, 320; and community, 111, 148, 320, 321, 325; 
and culture, 327-343; and citizenship, 344-365; in pris- 
ons, 359; as a preventive of crime, 359, 360; organiza- 
tions interested in, 393. 

Vocational education and national aid: 309-326; training of 
teachers, 296, 324 ; agricultural colleges, 312 ; Morrill 
Act of 1862, 312; Smith-Lever Act of 1914, 313; local. 



420 INDEX 

Vocational education and national aid — Continued. 

state and national cooperation, 315, 325, 326; migration 
of workers an argument for, 321 ; unequal financial re- 
sources of states and local units, an argument for, 322, 
323 ; bill before Congress outlined, 324. 

Vocational guidance: 111, 191, 262-284; a function of elemen- 
tary schools, 183; libraries to assist, 260; distribution 
among occupations to be regulated by, 264 ; employment 
offices, a minor phase of, 269, 281 ; examination of indi- 
vidual bent, 269; factors in, 269, 270; and experimental 
psychology, 271, 272, 284; and conservation, 273, 284; 
necessary to vocational education, 279, 283 ; not to be a 
forced process, 280; meaning of, 280; complexities of, 
281, 282; dependence of, on private associations for 
data, 282 ; place in ideal system of education, 374. 

Vocational instincts, 279. 

Vocational reading, 27-29, 211, 225, 249, 250, 261, 373. 

Vocational schools: 197-212; joint, 38; definition of, 197, 198; 
types of, 198; extent of, for professions, in United 
States, 200; for defectives, delinquents and dependents, 
202 ; development, 201, 202 ; success of, proved, 204 ; 
basic ideas of, 204 ; age of students in, 204, 205 ; should 
be adapted to trade taught, 205 ; prepare all-round 
workers, 206; train for definite things, 207; equipment 
necessary to, 208; supply deficiencies of apprenticeship, 
209; to be established widely, 210; universal system of, 
210; core of educational system, 211; place in ideal sys- 
tem of education, 373, 375. 

Vocational schools, teachers: 212, 285-308; prevocational sub- 
jects, 287; experience in life, in teaching and in voca- 
tion taught necessary to, 288, 290-294 ; lack of sympathy 
with new system, 291; agricultural subjects, 292; do- 
mestic science, 294; trades, 293, 294; national aid for 
training of, 296, 324; for girls' trade schools, 298; for 
commercial schools, 298, 299; for rural schools, 51, 301- 
306; experimentation in training of, 307. 

Vocations: increase of, in modern society, 10; education for 
those already engaged in, 25, 213-230; which, to be 
taught determined by local conditions, 37; failure of 
schools to train for, 263, 345, 346; number trained for, 
at public expense, 263, 283 ; overcrowded, 264, 283 ; dis- 
tribution among, 265 ; unwise choice, 274. 

Wall paper, selection, 155. 

War in Europe : 62, 123 ; and vocational education, 325. 

Ward, Lester F., 21, 26, 49, 367, 368. 

Waste : of resources, 164-181 ; of energy, 180. 

Water power, to supersede coal, 169. 

Water transportation, 122. 



INDEX 421 

Wealth, United States, 128. 

Webb, Sidney, 314. 

Weeds : 109 ; losses from, 165, 173. 

Wheat specials, 244. 

Winslow, Charles H., 86, 87. 

Wisconsin Report on Industrial and Agricultural Training, 
235. 

Women and girls : average term of employment, 177 ; trades 
offering opportunities for, 84; business education for, 
144; agricultural education for, 144; industrial educa- 
tion for, 144 ; domestic science for, 143-163 ; department 
stores, cheap clerks, 133 ; drudgery of home labor, 161 ; 
women's clubs, 161 ; as judges of values, 145 ; need of 
trained, 145 ; labor of, modified in modern society, 145 ; 
education for motherhood, 159; spenders of family in- 
come, 158. 

Wood: waste in, 170; preservatives, 170; waste in products, 
171. 

Work, and culture, 327-343. 

Workers : education for, 25 ; schools should keep In touch 
with until eighteen, 27 ; and libraries, 253 ; distribution, 
211, 268; distribution among occupations, 265; un- 
trained, 277; mobility of, 321, 322; all-round, vocational 
schools to turn out, 206. 

Workmanship : undeveloped in America, 63 ; in Germany, 65 ; 
industrial education to promote, 82; value of, 130; 
sources of, 215. 

Workmen, American, 63. 

Xenophon, 265. 

Young Men's Christian Association, trade schools, 71. 

Zacher, Dr., 80. 



3477-2 



